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This guy has a wife who is supporting him while he stays home, or plays, or whatever else it is that he does. He is not proof that no one can find a job. I suspect that he is not making much of an effort to find a job as long as the wife will still support him.
You yourself are not serious about job hunting and have turned down job after job, so you yourself are not proof that jobs are hard to find. If every job you find pays half of what you are earning now, you are probably over-paid so probably ought to hang onto that job.
I know a few people aren't proof, that's why I cited the articles I did. I think my friend is making an effort. He's your almost stereotypical immigrant from Asia that came here with nothing and worked his way up. I met him though the workplace years ago. He used to work 12 hour days, 7 days a week. He even worked when his mother died and he had to travel back home. He's not lazy and I believe him when he says he's doing his best looking.
As for me, you are right, I am not extremely serious. I am being really picky because I have that luxury. And I agree with you that I am overpaid (that's what I get for getting the maximum merit raise every year for over a decade... it snowballs). Plus, they gave me a big bonus recently to keep me as they were bleeding out experienced staff. It's my golden handcuffs. But I will accept a 10-15% cut in pay for more security (my workplace is in financial trouble due to our customer base being replaced by AI). If work closes shop and I am actually out of work, then I will consider a bigger paycut. I've actually toyed with the idea of taking one of those easy, 9-5 jobs/5 days a week vs. the hours I pull now.
There are a three factors I suspect go into the survey responses that say the economy is "bad" that you haven't touched upon yet.
The first is called "Reference Prices." We all remember what goods & services used to cost just a few years ago before the Federal Government embarked on its $5 Trillion Helicopter Drop.
We all have reference prices in mind - how much things ought to cost. By itself, the doubling of Old Spice deodorant is immaterial, but each of us has a reference price and when many things are out-of-whack with their reference price, we know something is rotten. In this case, it is the economy.
The second is actual inflation statistics may understate what many people feel inflation really is.
Bolhuis, Cramer, Schulz & Summers have an NBER working paper discussing this phenomenon, and they attribute the issue to the cost of borrowing, which is not currently in the CPI "market basket of goods and services":
Unemployment is low and inflation is falling, but consumer sentiment remains depressed. This has confounded economists, who historically rely on these two variables to gauge how consumers feel about the economy. We propose that borrowing costs, which have grown at rates they had not reached in decades, do much to explain this gap. The cost of money is not currently included in traditional price indexes, indicating a disconnect between the measures favored by economists and the effective costs borne by consumers. We show that the lows in US consumer sentiment that cannot be explained by unemployment and official inflation are strongly correlated with borrowing costs and consumer credit supply. Concerns over borrowing costs, which have historically tracked the cost of money, are at their highest levels since the Volcker-era. We then develop alternative measures of inflation that include borrowing costs and can account for almost three quarters of the gap in US consumer sentiment in 2023. Global evidence shows that consumer sentiment gaps across countries are also strongly correlated with changes in interest rates. Proposed U.S.-specific factors do not find much supportive evidence abroad.
The third is with respect to the change in the way official CPI numbers are calculated beginning in 1983. In 1983, the way rent was incorporated was changed.
Here is the current measure of inflation along with what inflation would be if the BLS computed the cost of housing as it did before 1983. Notice the far right of the graph where there is a massive spike in the yellow line compared with the official blue line:
This is really interesting stuff. I am a bit tired now, but I read though it and plan to read it again tomorrow when I am not so mentally drained. Thank you for sharing it and putting so much careful thought into it.
housing in the cpi can be very hard to deal with when you have renters and owners .
as an example , as a renter with no money tied up in a house anymore , the rise in interest rates and other assets has increased income greatly offsetting any increases in rent by far compared to if we still owned and that money was tied up in our house .
other renters have no other money invested and so there is nothing to offset increases .
some homeowners live in very low cost areas and we’re not effected as much by inflation as others in high cost areas .
then you get into mortgage rates one may have that can skew things one way or another .
so housing can be very tricky to deal with as there are to many individual situations to deal with
this country is actually 1500 mini economies so there isn’t one way or another that will be better for all situations.
overall i think the changes that have been made in measuring reflect more in a more comparable way
In case you weren't aware, there IS a currency drought. The economic system is far larger than the circulating medium of exchange (it's not "money" by law, in case you were interested).
Since employers are constrained by personnel budgets, any pressure on that translates to job insecurity (like mandated boosts in "minimum wage").
The more you can extricate from "that" system, the better.
Go PUNK AMISH. Barter. Disconnect from "their" system as best as you can.
Combine the worst of the Great Depression (unemployment, poverty) with the rationing of WW2. That's where we're heading.
If you can't make it, can't trade for it, can't grow it, you won't have it. (Note: I am not including the demographics crisis around the world, where recipient populations are crushing the taxpaying populations, due to the drop in fertility.)
... ... ... ... ... ...
References: https://www.federalreserve.gov/releases/h41/current/
Federal Reserve Balance Sheet: Factors Affecting Reserve Balances - H.4.1
Search report for “currency in circulation”
Divide by current population, and then consider what would happen when everyone tries to "cash out."
- - -
Don't be fooled by "electronic entries" in financial ledgers. IF you need the "cash" in hand, all those digital numbers are smoke.
That's one of the triggers of the Crash of 1929 - the sudden rush to "cash out" - sell stocks to pay creditors. Paper wealth vanished overnight.
housing in the cpi can be very hard to deal with when you have renters and owners .
Very true.
Quote:
Originally Posted by mathjak107
as an example , as a renter with no money tied up in a house anymore , the rise in interest rates and other assets has increased income greatly offsetting any increases in rent by far compared to if we still owned and that money was tied up in our house .
Correct me if I'm wrong, but because you live in New York City and because of the regulations governing your specific building & your specific unit, your landlord is not free to raise your rent to the market clearing rate. If true, you also have a long-term substantial financial benefit of paying less than the market clearing rate. If true, your personal rent hasn't spiked the way the chart above shows.
Quote:
Originally Posted by mathjak107
overall i think the changes that have been made in measuring reflect more in a more comparable way
The 1983 changes were made for a reason, and on balance, the new way is considered better by economists.
But Larry Summers' working paper above is food for thought regarding the "price of credit". I'm sure that paper is being circulated within the BLS and the Federal Reserve for comment.
Correct me if I'm wrong, but because you live in New York City and because of the regulations governing your specific building & your specific unit, your landlord is not free to raise your rent to the market clearing rate. If true, you also have a long-term substantial financial benefit of paying less than the market clearing rate. If true, your personal rent hasn't spiked the way the chart above shows.
The 1983 changes were made for a reason, and on balance, the new way is considered better by economists.
But Larry Summers' working paper above is food for thought regarding the "price of credit". I'm sure that paper is being circulated within the BLS and the Federal Reserve for comment.
the answer is it depends when it comes to housing and rents .
a bit less than half our housing is un regulated , that means whatever the market can get ….about 6% is rent controlled which almost don’t exist anymore and basically apply to original tenants from the 1970s . those can be crazy low .
stabilized refers to the bulk of our apartment house and high rise rentals.
those vary from pretty under market like the ones we owned and had stabilized tenants in to ones that run 6-8k a month in manhattan.
usually unless a coop conversion with original tenants who didn’t buy , like we owned , the lower rent buildings are not nice at all and many are poorly maintained low end stuff .
the building we are in is at market because not only are landlords granted mci increases for capital improvements which never went away ever but they get outrageous parking spot fees on top of board voted rent increases . two cars can run almost 600 a month in our building as street parking is little
so housing is all over the map.
when outsiders think of stabilized housing they think of cheap dingy apartments but many are far from it .
i love these rentals in manhattan .
actually the developer we sold our commercial lease rights to in the 200 central park south building put these buildings up
One phenomenon about to affect the job market is for several years there has been a "teacher shortage" but now many districts are preparing to lay off staff (including teachers) because of the expiration of COVID funds.
Oh there is a shortage now of ELL teachers - bilingual teachers due to the migrants
We need a thread about this. "IT Contractor" can mean anything from PC-help desk who hot-swap hard drives, add RAM and order new laptops @ $20 per hr. to disaster recovery and security experts who charge $20 per minute or more.
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We were paying $200 an hour for the contract worker that we used. And that was 2 years ago.