EVEN IF the economy has gotten worse every single year since 2009 (it hasn't) this still leaves the puzzle of why people believed the economy was so strong 2016-2019. The simplest answer is that the number of homeless people you're personally working with is not a reliable macroeconomic indicator - ThreadSky

whstancil.bsky.social • 11 days ago

EVEN IF the economy has gotten worse every single year since 2009 (it hasn't) this still leaves the puzzle of why people believed the economy was so strong 2016-2019. The simplest answer is that the number of homeless people you're personally working with is not a reliable macroeconomic indicator

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Comments

paultree10.bsky.social•11 days ago

And of course the number of homeless people can even be a macroeconomic indicator in the opposite direction!

If the median income in an area with growing population spikes without an increased housing supply, it can be great for ~95% of people but drive the other ~5% out of housing.

fdrobovelt.bsky.social•11 days ago

I also bet if you polled those who live around homeless people (urbanites) they would think the economy is better than those who never see homeless people (suburban/rurals).

There are a LOT of folks who never deal with homeless people.

mroptimistic.bsky.social•11 days ago

i think that used to be a lot more true than it used to, i live in a pretty small city in a rural area (of a battleground state to boot) and there was no visible homelessness here until 2021 or 22, but its very present now both downtown and in some parks

mroptimistic.bsky.social•11 days ago

i'm not a doomer on the biden economy in general and i have seen statistics claiming homelessness hasn't spiked but the only way i can read them as plausible is by assuming a lot of couch surfers got transferred to people living on the street

jwolf.bsky.social•11 days ago

J.T. is apparently one of the Main Characters in that book of his he's shilling on his Bsky page.

lugoz.bsky.social•11 days ago

The irony of using homelessness as an indicator. Most people who voted on the economy do not want homeless housed in their neighborhood.

guspowers.bsky.social•11 days ago

It's funny how reliance on real estate values as the most meaningful way for the average American to gain wealth both makes them need to defend that wealth by any means (keeping prices high) creating more visible homelessness, which foments further reaction!

guspowers.bsky.social•11 days ago

It means everyone can actually get richer, but tills the field for anger at feeling like they are still falling behind. Nice system.

mathewforesta.bsky.social•11 days ago

It's because rents, groceries, and fuel are up while many people are stuck working gig jobs that cut their pay and have no benefits.

ebones.bsky.social•11 days ago

so the argument here is that homeless people dont matter? if the economy is good for the middle class but homelessness is on the rise this simply means things are going in a good direction and should keep going that way?

lenoxus.bsky.social•11 days ago

There are a lot of issues here. A big one is it's not really plausible Americans suddenly care about the plight of the homeless. Another issue is that because housing supply keeps being stagnant, homelessness perversely has an inverse correlation with everything that's basically good in an economy.

lenoxus.bsky.social•11 days ago

You can help individual homeless people with welfare, and that's a good policy to have , but until we fix supply that ultimately shifts things around, like giving some players in musical chairs a better head start than they otherwise had.

ebones.bsky.social•11 days ago

i dont think americans suddenly started caring about homelessness, i think its more of a visibility issue on that front. more homeless people means more people on the streets where more bystanders will see the very clear signs of poverty. more people seeing poverty = more economic anxiety, generally

lenoxus.bsky.social•11 days ago

This is plausible, yes. It's depressing that the same people who react that way almost always oppose the government simply building housing and shelters, which is the best short-term way to address the problem (the long-term ways involve allowing supply to grow organically).

ebones.bsky.social•11 days ago

furthermore the supply problem is entirely caused by the fact that housing is a commodity, and that theres a business behind it. god knows how much property is completely vacant or being used as airbnbs or whatever. the policy solution to this would be either building government housing or breaking+

ebones.bsky.social•11 days ago

up the property business. which is something that put simply, isnt going to happen in the united states without some substantial change to the political landscape. also sorry if i come across as confrontational, thats just how i be. i appreciate the good faith response.

thewanderingjew.bsky.social•11 days ago

if we learned that the tipping point for Trump was a ton of votes from homeless people, we might be on to something here but.

thewanderingjew.bsky.social•11 days ago

also what's happening there is that budget cuts to social services generally mean that everyone has more clients.

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