There might be. The point is, that's not the narrative we're being force fed.
In the past couple of weeks I've heard multiple news media segments where some talking head is interviewing some "expert" and asking the same question, "Why isn't the public believing the economic news?" Yet neither of them considered: let's ask the public, we can do that.
So here's news on why, and there's a couple disconnect at the top from the middle and the bottom. Yeah, nothing new...until there's an election and the exploited vote to show their frustration. It doesn't - and shouldn't - have to be this way.
If you want to solve a problem, you have to describe it accurately first. "The economy is very strong" and "the bottom X% of society are having a bad time of it" are both statements that can be true at the same time. Further, if the first isn't true, the solution set for the second is differently constrained.
And as near as I can tell the bottommost segment of the American populace is, in material and numerical terms, generally seeing a more positive rate-of-change than pre-COVID; lower-end wages are increasing faster than they have in most of my lifetime and are significantly outpacing the inflation that got everybody hairshirting last year. The thing that the doomer set doesn't love to acknowledge is that so much of that dooming is sourced from precarious tech workers or members of/aspirational members of the media, who are getting hammered (in other words, the economic recovery seems K-shaped) and are in turn using their outsized megaphones to convince everybody else that it's a universal problem.
> "The economy is very strong" and "the bottom X% of society are having a bad time of it" are both statements that can be true at the same time
Not to a liberal (or even Adam Smith). The purpose of a economy is it benefits the people, that's why the people allow "the economy" to exist in the first place, if the common people aren't benefiting the economy isn't doing it's job and therefore cannot be "strong".
It's only strong if you think the economy exists to serve mainly the professional managerial class as well as the elites and perhaps the claims of strength reveal the true thoughts of the speaker.
Common people != people who excluded themselves from the economy.
Yet, even the OP who started this thread, while excluding him or herself from the economy still benefits from it, owning a vehicle, getting welfare payments and even receiving medical attention. Compare this to somebody who'd decided not to work in a poor country. You won't see posts on HN from a homeless in Mali, for example, because such a person, at best, would have been preoccupied with survival and would not have time or means for a critique of modern society on an internet forum.
Perhaps. But when so many aren't doing so well and they are force-fed "the economy is great", and *this is key* those disenfranchised vote...well, I hope you see where this is going.
The Federal gov (read: both parties) can't keep using aggregated numbers to hide the details and the hurting. Ppl aren't that naive any more. The world has changed. The gov's reporting of the economy has not. The more that disconnect widens, the worse the potential for sociopolitical fallout. We've been seeing that and yet how has Uncle Sam adjusted?
One of the dichotomies I've noticed is the talking points about affordable housing juxtaposed with saying the concern with "illegal immigration" by the opposite side of the political spectrum is overblown.
My thing is, even if its not the main issue causing issues with demand, I don't see how you can bring in nearly 3 million "undocumented migrants in a year" who are all going to compete for the lowest tier of the housing market, and outcompete single parents, etc on what they can afford in rent (since many have several adults rooming together and sharing rent). If you only have so many affordable apartments/houses etc to go around in a town/neighborhood/borough, etc, an influx of a few thousand, especially in high population areas is going to drive rents up and create constraints on the market.
It's certainly not helping. I don't see how you can not link these two issues, if you bring in migrants, documented or not (or not migrating through legal methods), they need housing, and its going to be the undocumented ones competing for housing in the sector with our most vulnerable citizens.
There seems to be some level of cognitive dissonance politically, at least in the media, when it comes to these two issues. Maybe those on the ground notice it or have tried to call it out. But if I can see it from my middle class suburbia, I don't see how this is getting missed, if not outright ignored.
All that to say, while certainly a local issue, this is a national issue I feel is at play here that local governments (short of stunts like bussing ppl to Martha's Vineyard or NYC), have no control over.
It’s fairly rare that I see arguments against immigration on the grounds that immigrants are more competitive in the labor and housing markets. Interestingly I have seen it said by folks like David Frum and Paul Krugman who I’d call center-right and center-left respectively.
What tends to bubble up is hatred; calling them dirty and rapists and whatnot. The fear mongering about how migrant caravans are coming to overdose my children with fentanyl or whatever the panic de jour is isn’t helping the cause for me, though it does seem quite effective for many.
On the other end of the economic spectrum, it seems like builders only want to build high end luxury housing where the margins are fat. While I’m sure the ROI on that is nice from a financial standpoint, it doesn’t seem to add much to society for some rich dude to own another mansion that they might spend a month or two in per year. I don’t know if that sort of thing is a huge effect however. It does seem that as wealth inequality ever increases, so do our social problems.
I do not understand your question. If you are suggesting the common vernacular of “the (national) economy” should refer to the plight of the bottom x%, then I guess that is one opinion to have.
> Serious question: If not the economy, then what?
That's a very good question, however you ask it.
A problem when you go looking for the root cause of things, if you can
bear to ask "why?" more than five times, is that you can go around in
circles or start seeing things that aren't there. That's definitely
going to happen if you go looking for the end of rainbow like "The
Economy" [0].
Other nebulous categories like "mental health" or "immigration" don't
add much to the conversation. but kick the can into someone else's
camp.
It also a difficult question because in a sense it's a void question
in world where we reduce _everything_ to "economics" - all human
affairs, structures and processes - to the point where it seems
there's nothing left that lies outside the realm of economics. (Maybe
that tells us "economics" has lost its power as a concept word and
pursuit, if we have problems that seem to lie outside of it.)
So when I hear someone say "It's not about 'The Economy'" what I'm
really hearing isn't "it has nothing to do with economics" (because
everything does), but "I don't think economists can understand and fix
this". And that's a valid observation - that people who think as
economists have a serious blind-spot and defecit of real power.
[0] If there isn't already there should be a South Park episode where
"The Economy" is kept in a glass box at the City Hall and Eric steals
it to sell at school.
And there's a lack of an actual left in the media. No idea why people keep parroting that the media is leftist. It's not. Big media has a very blatant pro-corporate bias, and they're quite proud of that.
The semantics and bullshit around "social issues" like abortion or LGBT rights is just that - semantics and bullshit intentionally amplified to keep people focused on the wrong thing.
There are two nearly identical sides, as you rightly point out. Just like political parties, where there's the pro-corporate party that's OK with minorities, and the super-pro-corporate party with a little religion mixed in.
I don't have USA examples but as a French citizen, I know that we can have an increase in GDP thanks to an increase in state (+SS) spending which is itself enabled by a higher debt each year.
We've been doing this in France for decades, but in recent years it was done by French politicians on an extraordinary scale while they claimed to an international audience that they bring more rigor in spending.
Edit: Since I can't reply, if your measure doesn't account for unsustainable practices, then its not really a measure, or you're intentionally "changing" the measure to leave out accounting for unsustainable practices. Measuring growth in a fund when its all just a ponzi scheme isn't how we measure fund performance on a report. If this is done, its either intentional or incompetent. Either, is very bad when dictating policy.
This is obviously untrue. An owner of a timber forest may measure how many trees they cut down each year. If they double the rate at which they cut down trees, that doesn't mean the way trees are counted has changed. It means they're harvesting unsustainably.
> then its not really a measure, or you're intentionally "changing" the measure to leave out accounting for unsustainable practices.
No, it's the nature of measures. What gets measured gets managed. The measure is still useful, it's just being read without context.
The degree of unsustainability is widely discussed because there are other measures, also collected and disseminated and picked apart, that characterise it. If you're making personal, commercial or policy decisions based on the headline metric, you should learn more about how to read the metrics as a whole. That isn't a problem with the measures, it's one of education.
Inflation and unemployment are the big ones. I believe they extended the time for recent gig work to count against unemployment even if you are job seeking, and gig workers don't feed into underemployed. So someone looking for work and also doing door dash etc but barely making any money would have previously counted as unemployed but now they are less likely to.
Pushing stats like average income being up is misleading and the stock market is inflated by reverse repos. The concentration of market cap in the index is problematic as well.
Reverse repos are still at shockingly high levels but drastically down from their recent highs. So the question is if there is another financial instrument at play that isn't as widely known since the repurchase agreements started taking heat.
Wealth inequality though is the real metric to look at and it's hard to judge but record homelessness is obviously not a good sign.
> they extended the time for recent gig work to count against unemployment
Not to my knowledge. Contingent employment has always counted as employment for broad measures; this is why many papers discuss non-farm payroll [1] or even full-time employed from surveys [2]. The problem is these data are less precise than broader payroll figures, and so can't be observed month to month nor even quarter to quarter, certainly not real time.
You're discussing an actual measurement problem, one that's been discussed since 2019 [3][4]. But it's cause for changing the metrics, not caused by any change in the metrics.
> the stock market is inflated by reverse repos
This is wrong, but I'm not sure for what reason. Could you explain why you think this?
Repos are a borrowing mechanism. Reverse repo means lending. Yes, lending boosted the stock market. But we're currently in a liquidity-draning environment, so this is a peculiar complaint.
>This is wrong, but I'm not sure for what reason. Could you explain why you think this?
Overnight repurchase agreements give banks seemingly off the books money to invest in commodity and equity markets. They are a direct driver of inflation. Banks are able to maintain positions and their balances by purchasing Treasury products at 11:59pm and having the fed buy them back at 12:01am. They are supposed to be used strictly for emergency liquidity situations but as you can see from the chart we got very far away from that. They are finally coming down but still very high. They are the primary reason for the record inflation.
- Life expectancy going down as a result of the above
- Homelessness increasing
- People are forced to take gig jobs, but this is somehow counted as fulltime employment.
- Taking people off the unemployment numbers because they haven't been able to find a job for 6 months or may have given up.
- College becoming unaffordable and leading to massive debt
- Housing becoming increasingly unaffordable, middle class households can no longer buy a home (technically to me means they're not really middle class)
I can go on.
Fudging the statistical measures by which we define economic slumps or saying its all cool cause Wall Street is recovering doesn't change what reality is for the average person. Things are getting worse for most people while getting better for smaller portion (wealth disparity increase).
>Fudging the statistical measures by which we define economic slumps or saying its all cool cause Wall Street is recovering doesn't change what reality is for the average person
But so far as I can tell indicators like GDP or unemployment were used for decades, and they haven't changed the methodology for those. Therefore I'm really sure what you mean by "fudging". However all the other indicators that you've listed are real and point to real issues, but aren't traditionally used in economic contexts. If anything changing the goalposts from gdp/unemployment to "Drug usage increasing" or whatever seems much closer to the "fudging" that you're decrying against.
Unemployment has changed, it used to mean people that want to work but can't find jobs. It meant if a factory or industry left your town, and you can't move, and you can't find a job, and end up going on a government check or something. You're taken off the roster. It's not that you don't want to work, its that no jobs are available. No one's asking you because you stopped going to the unemployment office because its useless. If you lose a full time job and work two part time jobs you're considered fully employed, even though you lost benefits and have to work crazy hours.
If you think administrations don't fudge the numbers to make themselves look more successful I don't know where you've been. Statistics are easy to mess with, and administrations favor the models that make them look better. It doesn't matter whose in office. Places like WV have seen mass unemployment for decades, but the numbers look better because people have gone on checks or government assistance and given up, thus aren't counted.
It's very telling most of the people here live around economic centers and find it very easy to ignore what stark reality is in most areas of the country. It's easier to believe a fairy tale told by the government, and only be critical of it when the opposing party is in office, when supposedly nothing has changed.
> Places like WV have seen mass unemployment for decades, but the numbers look better because people have gone on checks or government assistance and given up, thus aren't counted.
They are counted, there are 6 different unemployment measures and the labor force participation rate, all easily available. So far all I see are nebulous/unfounded claims providing zero evidence.
No one is denying that a certain portion of the population might be worse off, or that volatility is higher for some populations. But the official statistics are not denying that either.
The reason you're getting pushback about your original assertion is because it isn't actually true.
>Unemployment has changed, it used to mean people that want to work but can't find jobs.
It still means that.
>If you lose a full time job and work two part time jobs you're considered fully employed, even though you lost benefits and have to work crazy hours.
This is how full employment has been measured for a long time, so it's not an example of government changing measures to make things look better than they are.
>If you think administrations don't fudge the numbers to make themselves look more successful I don't know where you've been
This is not evidence. It's just a non sequitur.
>Statistics are easy to mess with, and administrations favor the models that make them look better.
Replacing the first conjecture with this one helps nothing. Again, where is the evidence for this statement? Is it a hunch that we're just meant to go along with?
>Places like WV have seen mass unemployment for decades, but the numbers look better because people have gone on checks or government assistance and given up, thus aren't counted.
This is how unemployment has been measured for more than half a century. It is not something that the government has changed to make things look better than they are.
>It's easier to believe a fairy tale told by the government, and only be critical of it when the opposing party is in office, when supposedly nothing has changed.
There is, again, zero evidence in this statement. It is looking more and more like the original assertion, "They've literally been changing the measurements of economic indicators to make things seem better than they are," was made up.
If you're living the suburban dream, there's nowhere to walk (it's all neighbours' lawns), no tram or metro is coming to pick you up, so you need a car to get anywhere. There's traffic on the way in, parking lots when you get there, and you can't even drink.
You can have those, far away from cities. Just don't expect to have those in and around cities. Cities need to be able to grow.
Too many cities and inner ring suburbs in the US are basically locked in amber and it's a real problem.
EDIT: Though I agree with the goal of "low traffic," and agree with the other commenters that low density areas in the US tend to not be low traffic. (At least not near cities - again, get far enough away from cities if you want low density and low traffic.) I suspect you won't like the ways a city might get there though.
I've visited various places in the US in CA, Nevada, Utah, NY, NJ, Connecticut, RI, and Massachusetts, and the US idea of "low density" is incompatible with my idea of "low traffic".
Not that I'd simply delete your planning laws: I would copy the high-level stuff from Europe, and keep whatever your local rules are for fire, hurricane, earthquake, and tornado safety etc.
We should really change the tax structure so folks who prefer low density actually have to pay for the privilege instead of being entirely subsidized by urban environments. Suburban streets cannot pay for themselves on a suburban tax base. It’s entirely unsustainable.
The economy is doing stellar for the upper classes which account for maybe 10 to 15% of the population. That’s the so-called disconnect that the Biden administration doesn’t understand.
But the economy in general is not doing stellar, regardless. This bifurcation of wealth is going to lead, or is at least a marker, of an instability in the system. The fact that the Fed just decided that they’re looking at lowering interest rates means that they can’t lower inflation because the stock market and housing prices will crash. Housing prices increase because money printing increased.
> The economy is doing stellar for the upper classes which account for maybe 10 to 15% of the population.
Part of the problem is that the US isn’t one “the economy”, it’s localized, primarily due to housing markets. There is no way that the top 10% of income earners qualify as “upper class” in the US, because the majority are in high COL areas.
When you make $400k/pa, but pay $5k/mo in rent/housing, that’s a very different outcome than making $400k/pa and paying $1k/mo in rent/housing. Both of these situations exist in the US, but the former is much more common than the latter. Looking at income only without accounting for cost of living presents a skewed view of things. The person paying the higher cost of living in this situation is solidly middle class, if and only if they own that property, renters by definition aren’t middle class. The person paying the low cost of living almost certainly owns the property and is able to invest heavily, so is almost certainly upper class or a HENRY.
Earning $90k/pa puts you in the top 10% of income earners, and isn’t even six figures. The new middle class for non-Boomers starts in the top 3%. You only need to earn $300k/pa to be in the vaunted 1%, and in most high COL areas you’ll never be able to afford a house.
Looking at income percentiles without looking at cost of living is a really skewed viewpoint, and it ignores the huge wealth chasm between the top 0.1% and everyone else, even 1%ers struggle to make rent.
If you define "high COL" as the area where you cannot afford a house on 300K income then sure, but you definitely can afford a house pretty much anywhere in the US with such an income, which qualifies you for over $1M loan.
At $300k/pa with $5000/mo in rent, it’s pretty obvious I am talking about SFBA and NYC, which unsurprisingly have the highest density of people earning $300k/pa. In those areas you need to spend at least $2.5M to buy anything decent, it would take 62 months (or 5 years) if you saved every penny earned after you paid rent (infeasible) to save up a 20% down payment for the mortgage.
You’re only “qualified” for what you can make the down payment on, and starter homes in high CoL areas are nonexistent.
Even in SF proper there are plenty of houses under 1M, much more in the Bay Area. Same with NYC: quite a lot of houses in the city proper, much more in NJ over the river [1].
>You’re only “qualified” for what you can make the down payment on
You sound like you've never applied for a loan.
>You seem to have rose colored glasses.
You seem to consider only the housing you cannot afford "decent" and then complain as if it's the reality.
I live in a much cheaper area than the SFBA (Denver), and anything decent starts at $1.2M, if you find a house here for $600K, it’s what’s considered “bulldoze ready”, empty lots with sewer, water, power already connected go for $550K+.
If you think something you can buy in SFBA under $1M is livable rather than “bulldoze ready”, you are the one that is out of touch.
I am not sure how your observation in Denver translates to SFBA? Some teardowns/lots will go for $550K or more, depending on location. It does not mean a house under $1M is unlivable in SFBA. Teardowns do not have staged interior pictures on Zillow, JFYI.
> The economy is doing stellar for the upper classes which account for maybe 10 to 15% of the population. That’s the so-called disconnect that the Biden administration doesn’t understand.
It's been also doing great for the lower classes. The bottom quartiles have seen far higher wage growth than the top quartiles.
Or rather, unless you put them up in hotels and send them back when done, how do you account for providing them housing when housing is already constrained?
Every time I see moderate density housing built, it's luxury apartments (almost always 5 over 1) that have rents higher than my mortgage. I don't see how this is accounted for.
> its luxury apartments (almost always 5 over 1) that have rents higher than my mortgage. I don't see how this is accounted for
It takes two years [1] to get a building permit, and the two-year borrowing rate for the U.S. Treasury is 4.44% [2]. That delay alone will cost a developer at least 10% more.
That permiting process, alone, raises housing costs by double digits [a].
So they'll be more incentivized for profit, not less. Also, OP never said any of this, you're just doing the thinking it out for them.
My point is the housing being built isn't going to serve the those who are housing insecure or migrants working construction jobs. If anything these places are taking over the neighborhoods that used to serve that sector.
> they'll be more incentivized for profit, not less
Why would any of this change developers' profit motive?
> the housing being built isn't going to serve the those who are housing insecure
We agree. This is because housing supply is constrained. That raises its price, which makes it unaffordable for more people. Removing supply constraints changes that.
Also, new luxury housing absolutely lowers housing prices. I've seen it personally. A luxury building opened nearby. I figured there was a 10 to 15% difference after accounting for amenities like its gym, in exchange for more space and a quieter apartment. Others clearly did the math, because we lost two people in the building to it. I showed my math to the landlord, told them I was considering decamping, and negotiated down my rent. I told my neighbours and they each did the same. We had more choices, and so had to pay less. Basic supply and demand.
There was just literally a scandal because real estate developers were inflating prices because it’s more profitable, even if it didn't reflect market demand.
Developers have the same incentive, they are not incentivized to build properties they'll make less on, even if supply goes up. I've seen lots of properties built, they can be half unoccupied/empty and the rents/leases don't change. They're simply not going to lower the value of their own properties, they'll keep it inflated because at least then it’s a tax write-off/loss.
This increased supply concept is being parroted but no one can provide examples of supply being increased and rents going down, or the very least demand can't be kept up with and no area gets saturated to the point prices go down. Usually the opposite happens, new apartment/housing = nicer neighborhood = more desirable area = rent/housing values go up. We usually call this gentrification. Not unless it was a government subsidized project or section 8 housing or a local economic collapse and people leaving (which cheap rent means little if there are no jobs/economy).
Developers are very risk adverse, they’ll never build in an area that risks supply outstripping demand.
I don't understand how people can live for 20 years, see these patterns and still believe the theories they get taught in economics 101 in school and think they're fully educated on the matter.
Yeah, this grade school-level notion of supply and demand is nonsense.
Not only do we not see a decrease in house prices and rent prices when new housing is developed, but there’s literally a higher vacancy rate than the amount of housing we’re supposedly short on.
In particular, corporate landlords have figured out that it’s better for their bottom line to keep units vacant than to lower the rent, partly due to plausible deniable collusion via RealPage et al.
> they'll keep it inflated because at least then it’s a tax write-off/loss
No, it’s because of loan covenants. Leveraged landlords can’t lower the rent without defaulting on loans. It works in the short term, and then the market either corrects or they default. (You see the same effect in CRE. And China.)
There have been cases of collusion. I can also cite company towns. These are scandals because they’re an exception; the housing crisis is one across continents.
Sometimes there are international conspiracies. More often, it’s emergent behaviour. Particularly in the landlord market, which features a lot of cottage industry, it’s a bit ridiculous to propose scandals as the universal solution. (Do you really know zero individual landlords?)
> they’ll never build in an area that risks supply outstripping demand
You’ve clearly never been to Phoenix. Or any other city that overbuilt on the back of zealous developers.
> no one can provide examples of supply being increased and rents going down
Literally did in an anecdote. Also Japan.
This has been deeply studied [1]. It’s difficult to find counter examples. Yet we continue to see the gentrification hypothesis parroted because most voters never got past high-school economics, nor learned to read academic papers.
> see these patterns and still believe the theories they get taught in economics 101
I mean, yes. Same here. That said, I’ll take the silver lining: I’m glad I’m a homeowner and can count on folks who think limiting supply will keep the gentrifiers out. (I’m still waiting for my price-fixing membership email.)
Having done volunteer work with the homeless (and helping with these counts in years past), I think the broad term of "homeless" isn't all that useful.
I encountered so many different types of folks. Some were people down on their luck that needed help. Some had mental problems that (I'm guessing) can never really be fixed. Some had addictions. Some simply enjoyed being homeless.
I think addressing the problem would need to address varying underlying causes. For instance, "just give them jobs" will work for some of these folks, but not for a lot of them.
I think there’s also a gradient to “not having a home” here that isn’t discussed. Does “homeless” describe somebody who is illegally squatting? Somebody who has lost their home and is crashing on friends couches? Youth who have a home but do not want to return to it? Somebody who stays in a shelter every night? The group I work with uses “underhoused” as the term, which I think better describes the situation.
IIRC, the terms in the UK are "homeless" if you have no fixed abode and "sleeping rough" if you have no access to permanent shelter. If you're limited to couch surfing, that's the first but not the second.
Homelessness is well-defined by HUD and the definition has been the same for decades. The report discussed here almost certainly missed numerous homeless people because it is based on the point-in-time count, where local agencies go out in the field for one day and try to find homeless people, which overlooks some classes of homeless.
Some people need a hand to get back on their feet. Some people need a small, safe space just for them and their stuff (voluntary homelessness, broadly speaking; tiny homes or more dense concepts in urban areas work here), some people need to be committed (I know some folks like this both in a clinical setting, as well as a working farm in New England operated just for this need). These statements are the easy part, the hardest part is implementation.
Affordable housing is of course key to broad housing security for those of sound mind and economics who desire to be housed.
Oh, to be clear, I have no idea what a solution is. Some are straightforward (It was great to see when people finally got a job and got off the streets). But I'd say the majority of them are not easy solutions. Give a job to someone who is mentally not capable of ever holding a job, and there won't be any success.
The "give people free money and freedom to do with it whatever THEY think is necessary"-model seems promising.[1] Unfortunately it's also politically sensitive.
If only America was the richest country in the world...
Homelessness for San Francisco was a mere PR problem during a state visit. Their is 0 appetite to tackle these social problems. Before implementation comes the actual political will to do something about it.
I’ve never met someone who wanted to be homeless, I met people who didn’t want to live in substandard housing because homelessness was better, but I never met someone who wanted to be homeless. Give anyone of these homeless people $1 million house and I guarantee you they willwant to live in it.
Yeah. The homeless in popular imagination that actually prefer living without a home are called #vanlife’rs.
The one sees in cities are not those at all. Where they have access to shelters or even housing and they prefer to live as homeless instead is overwhelmingly because the housing and shelters are substandard, moldy, they’re exposed to risks of abuse including sexual abuse, they may not be allowed to bring their pets in, they may have addictions that they will be asked to wean off cold turkey (both understandable from the housing/shelter point of view, but it’s also obvious why someone addicted to a substance would not be able to do this), etc.
In my interactions I was genuinely surprised by the really large percentage of homeless who preferred to live on the streets (even in the winter) over decent shelters without many of these risks, because of pets not being allowed. For many the companionship with the pets are quite literally keeping them sane, and there’s no way they’d give them up, and yet the vast majority of shelters have a no pet policy (again, understandable, but it still is a contributing problem).
Now, there are definitely a few homeless who have mental health issues. And unfortunately, for obvious reasons those are the ones most people are likely to encounter (the sane homeless people prefer to stay out of the way and would prefer avoiding people altogether because of the shame and the judgment they’d encounter to begin with). So most people’s (including mine until I started volunteering with organizations that worked directly with homeless people) estimation of homeless people is based on this tiny minority at one extreme. Which is unfortunate because it makes passing actual useful policy that will help the homeless and reduce homelessness and all the issues that come with it, very difficult to bring into force.
> In my interactions I was genuinely surprised by the really large percentage of homeless who preferred to live on the streets (even in the winter) over decent shelters without many of these risks, because of pets not being allowed. For many the companionship with the pets are quite literally keeping them sane, and there’s no way they’d give them up, and yet the vast majority of shelters have a no pet policy (again, understandable, but it still is a contributing problem).
The few shelters I've looked into have a huge list of rules that are strictly enforced which quickly turned me away. And they were in old, run down, dirty buildings. It almost seemed like they didn't want anybody to use the shelters, and very few appeared to be using them.
I'll try to clarify. I met a large number of people who had all the tools, facilities, ability, and help they needed to not be homeless and still chose to be homeless.
Just as an example, one young man I spent a lot of time with had a family that wanted him to come home, but who wouldn't let him smoke weed in the house. I wouldn't have called him an addict by any stretch, but it was something he was unwilling to give up. He was a strong, able bodied guy that could have gotten a job. Despite all of this, he decided he'd rather live on the streets and do what he wants. (Could he have had severe mental problems and be making all of this up? Sure, but I don't believe that he did).
It's actually the biggest reason I stopped volunteering. Over the years that I volunteered, I noticed a steady shift from people who really need and/or want help to a large number of people like the young man I described. When helping out the homeless people you can't pick or choose or make judgements, so you treat everyone equally. But it became very hard to hand out things like sleeping bags to folks like that young man and then see people who really did have nothing unable to get one.
But, yes, in your example if you offer anyone a free million dollar house they will take it over living on the streets, but I don't think that's a very realistic comparison.
Also, to be clear, I'm just some dude. I don't have any realistic answers to fix the problem.
That is because mental/psychological healthcare is completely broken in the US.
Im currently dealing with the system for a family member, and I am shocked at just how hard it is to get help. Ignore the financials, most psych hospitals won’t treat you and have zero interest in keeping you longer than absolutely necessary. The one my family member went to twice didn’t even set them up with a treatment plan or doctors/psychiatrists/psychologists when they were released.
I’m homeless and have schizoaffective bipolar disorder. I haven’t been able to see a regular psychiatrist or therapist since Covid started. A lot of my therapist were taken over by people suffering from dealing with the lockdowns. should they have really been the priority?
My homelessness exacerbates my mental illness, not only because of the stress of living out of a van but also the inability to have consistent healthcare being that I have to drive to warmer temperatures or cooler temperatures depending on the season.
And the treatments for psychiatric diseases are still stuck back about 50 years. I’ve had to run my own genetics and do my own research to find out what would help me. I mostly done it no help to any doctor or physician or psychiatrist.
Many people act like homeless people don’t want to get better, but I’m doing everything I can and no one is helping me absolutely no one. Psychiatrist who take Medicare have zero investigative initiative and psychiatric awards are for profit hotels for the mentally ill.
If anyone has a positive view of this country and the goodness of the people of this country, I want to dissuade you of that notion.
I am currently parking at Walmart in Palm Springs, California. The amount of wealth I see driving around me in vehicles alone could end homelessness in this country.
I’m always amazed at some of the responses here whenever the mentally ill are brought up. Suggesting that they should simply be hospitalized for their illness. That would be lovely, but speaking as someone who has been locked in a hospital before, it’s very expensive. When I’m between layoffs, I do have health insurance, but I don’t imagine that’s the case for the chronically ill.
When I bring this up here, I’m told that these people just need to engage with some system and they’ll be well taken care of. I have seen no evidence of this myself; as the article and your experience would suggest, it’s just the opposite.
The best someone can have going for them is a family member with money, but the mentally ill tend to burn their last bridges quite often.
I was homeless for awhile due to mental health issues and this couldn't be more true. The people dealing with the homeless professionally aren't the people you would want dealing with them and the funding isn't there for anything better. A LOT of people end up worse off because of bad experiences when they reach out for help. That's certainly true in my case. I have autism and was a "gifted" student growing up, so it isn't like the system is impossible for me to understand. It really is that bad (in my experience and where I live).
Just want to offer some additional context here: "in the US" isn't really necessary. Mental health care is generally broken everywhere. Over here in the UK, waiting lists for "talking therapy" are long, and access is limited. Same story for most other countries with socialised healthcare. And, often, mental health care is even more stigmatised than it is in the US (where at least there's fairly broad societal acceptance, at least amongst younger generations).
Further, while the US is seeing major shortages of mental health care providers, most European countries are even worse off, in large part because there's no class of master's-degree-holding therapists -- you either get a doctoral-level degree, or you just attend some basic courses and call yourself a therapist with no licensing or regulatory bodies governing your practice.
I'd actually argue that the US's system is better than most other western nations' mental health care systems -- which is not a statement in favour of the US, but an indictment of other nations' approaches.
(Source for my data and opinions here: I'm an American immigrant to the UK, and my wife has a master's degree in clinical mental health counselling - she only practised for about a year before she quit because the system is so broken in the US.)
You have to be careful, because what you said is also the standard argument against action. You get people implying that if you can't help everyone you shouldn't help anyone, that more study is needed before doing anything, et cetera. No solution is perfect, but they are all better than nothing.
And all homeless have something in common: they are homeless. Yes, most of them have other problems in addition, but once they have housing they have one less problem and the other problem is likely to be easier to treat or handle once they have their housing situation sorted out.
Can’t upvote this enough. There are so many categories of homeless. It’s such a a board bucket that any policy that helps some may have a negative effect on others or is at least ineffective. To lump them all together makes the problem unsolvable
“This year's "counts reflect a considerable lessening of the impact the COVID-19 pandemic on shelter use," the department's report said.
Pandemic-era social safety net programs expired throughout the year, such as income protections and eviction moratoria.”
Pretty terrible reporting tbh. The above seems to be the executive summary. Also worth noting it’s the highest count since 2007, which is interesting on its own. Why was 2007 so high?
In January of 2007? The crisis hit a bit later, if you’re thinking about foreclosures. Housing prices were still up, and the housing market was tight. It may suggest that homeless is driven by real estate speculation. In other words hot economies cause homelessness to increase, not the converse.
Maybe I am misunderstanding it but I read that the survey here was taken in January 2023, and 2007 was compared to "when reporting began," which isn't specified where within 2007.
I assumed the 2007 year would be the same “1 night in January” method. But it occurs to me, reading your comment that maybe they didn’t mean 2007 was the second highest count, just that the collection only goes back to 2007. Again, terrible journalism.
In the US we must stop referring to drug addicts as "homeless" when they have been turned away from public or temporary housing because they have elected to do drugs instead.
It's obvious that this creates a misleading perception among the public about the causes of people living outside the social norm of paying for the right to stay in a private space.
The danger of that is that when unchecked, the public votes and government acts based on this misconception. That converts to public policy which aims to solve the wrong problem at the cost of the wrong people.
I used to travel around the world and cannot believe that US couldn't solve or is blind about this problem. It shocks me to be in the "country of technology dreams" while I look at the state of many people there. Only think in tech-noir movies.
Yes, there has. It’s not that hard, they just need houses. Which means they need a population that cares. So this is not a physical matter, it’s a spiritual matter. It’s a matter of the heart.
> The number of homeless people in Finland has continuously decreased over the past three decades from over 16 000 in 1989 to around 4 000, or 0.08% of the population
Certainly, by definition. A "civilisation" is a body achieving an
advanced stage of development and organisation. With shelter and food
being at the base of the needs hierarchy, satisfying those would be a
least requirement for "advanced".
It's not really something the federal government can do much about. There is a vast difference between the availability of affordable housing between a state like, say, California, and New Jersey. The latter has far more programs, and far more available stock, and far more perfectly livable, undeveloped land where new housing, offices, stores, etc. could be built for the long term. California, on the other hand, has little to no affordable housing stock, and since it is so hard, already, with the available space to build new single family housing (and because, in the past, affordable housing programs in large apartment towers have turned out to be hotbeds of societal ills, so nobody wants to build high-density affordable housing) prices have skyrocketed and whenever a natural disaster, which is common in California but very uncommon in New Jersey, comes and destroys a bunch of houses, all the sudden a bunch of people become homeless.
All these issues are dealt with at the level of the municipality and the state, the federal government has significantly less power here. Now, I am no expert in affordable housing programs, if someone who has done more research on this topic would like to come and correct me, they are welcome. But this is my basic impression from what I've seen.
There’s tons of empty malls that the government can buy right now and at least they could let people living in their cars park there. I mean they won’t even do that. They won’t even ban making it illegal to live in your car in this country.
I’d normally agree, except in America it’s very difficult for local governments to handle homelessness because they seem inherently incapable of learning from each other and building a corpus of best practices that they can share and adopt.
American local governments go out of their way to do everything as if they’re the only ones facing an issue, and I think solving that tendency in American governance is likely way harder than solving anything in the homelessness space.
Even outside of that there are very large downsides for local governments to handle such issues because any successful system would likely attract more people from other parts of the country which would put an even greater financial burden on local taxpayers. Considering cities are cutting services like libraries, etc. it’s a huge disincentive for any local government to enact an actual effective solution.
> affordable housing programs in large apartment towers have turned out to be hotbeds of societal ills, so nobody wants to build high-density affordable housing
The problem isn't with high-density affordable housing but with building housing that segregates people based on income level. High-density development is a good thing generally and makes a neighborhood more varied and vibrant in my view.
The problem comes from concentrating poverty into a single location. Instead, the United States should spread it out evenly with affordable housing throughout our cities and neighborhoods. The development patterns in the United States end up with two extremes: single family houses or large apartment blocks, with nothing in between (the missing middle problem). There is a lot of implicit segregation by income there, even at the single family housing level, since different housing developments tend to build roughly the same size house repeatedly in any given development. Rather than building neighborhoods where everyone has roughly the same income level, as the United States does now, it would be better to build neighborhoods that can accept people of all income levels. That way, the problems associated with poverty and similar issues are diluted throughout a city and never concentrated.
I agree that concentrating poverty makes things worse, however, that is highly unlikely to change. The development patterns you mention are the explicit result of planned development with the express purpose of segregation. The US is the way it is because it's how the majority of people prefer it to be. Nobody wants to see the ugly underside of poverty. Most people prefer to wall it off. Out of site out of mind.
One of the biggest problems is many homeless are too mentally ill to make good decisions for themselves like seeking treatment. That's probably obvious given their life situation, but the law doesn't allow anything to be done for people too sick to help themselves. We need compelled treatment and high-quality facilities which are not jails but where people are not free to leave until they have enough momentum in their treatment to improve their lives. This seems heavy-handed, and probably is, but most people would thank you eventually.
That's changing in CA in 2024. The state legislature passed a law permitting involuntary holds on people who are unable to provide for their own physical safety or are suffering from substance abuse disorders.
What a lot of people don't understand is that the policy inadequacies that led to this point are mostly state-based, and in CA, cities simply couldn't do much about strung-out junkies on their streets once city councils started experimenting with decriminalizing drug use and deprioritizing drug enforcement. It's not like arresting them was a great solution, but it was the only thing available to city police forces, and it kept these people out of the public eye. Once that was removed as a tool, they were pretty much left with "Unless they're actively threatening someone, nothing we can really do."
That's changing, mercifully. Here in SF, a lefty-fringe position took over for a while, wherein homelessness with thought of as some sort of legitimate lifestyle, and society had to be forced to see it so we could all gaze upon the misery that tech money had wrought. After a while though, normal people just get sick of having to step over an unconscious body while taking their kids out for a walk.
While it's tempting to blame Reagan for the contemporary homeless problem, I'm not sure that's really right. Reagan was a giant piece of shit, but I don't find it plausible that his policy decisions in 1980 were the proximate cause of the homeless problem that started taking off in the late 2000s.
Personally I think a lot of the homeless problem comes down to two things that worked together to produce unintended consequences.
1. Opioids
2. Evolving attitudes toward drug use
Opioids are a scourge that created lots of new addicts. At the same time, society finally started realizing that criminalizing drug use was stupid. So the first thing to happen was the easiest: we stopped throwing people in prison. But it's not like these were people who had their lives together in the first place -- they had problems, and previously the prison system is how we dealt with those problems and kept them out of public view. And simultaneously, we were seeing an explosion of addicts thanks for opioids and pharma marketing. So lots more addicts plus lots less enforcement means lots more homelessness.
Now we're in a transitional phase where we're trying to figure out the best way to help these people and maintain their dignity. In the mean time, they live in tents on the street for everyone to see. CA is now codifying the obvious -- these people cannot care for themselves, and law-abiding citizens have a right to use public sidewalks without having to worry that a guy in a tent will think they're trespassing.
Let me tell you, the economy isn’t doing great for people like me. I’m permanently disabled and lost my housing at the beginning of Covid, and I haven’t been able to acquire housing since. For the last three years I’ve been living in a 2001 minivan. Now I’m seeing costs everything go up and the COKA adjustment for Social Security isn’t quite doing it.
Mark my words, were going to have a different party running the country next year. The Democrats have failed people like me, the people that used to be their base, and instead favored the corporate class who allowed the financial capitalist to buy up All the homes so they can rent them at outrageous prices.
Reading that article would be a start. They could also expand section 8 housing. They could also get rid of the countless nonprofits that siphon money away from the homeless. They could tie Social Security cola adjustments more towards housing and rental prices.
They Institute Medicare for all. They could ban the emptying of large amounts of houses by financial capital firms. Which they are already doing sort of. They could end Airbnb. They could ban making it illegal to sleep in a car or sleep on the street.
Or they can just really care.
I could go on, but again this is not a problem of not having the money, I mean we’re supporting two useless wars right now. This is a problem of people not caring or caring for the wrong things.
These policies are antithetical to everything the current GOP stands for. Voting for them will not address your issues. Just about everything you’ve said is considered opinions of “the left”. So, pushing the Democratic Party more to the left seems like the logical choice.
I’d rather suggest a third-party. Look what happened to Bernie Sanders when he tried to push it to the left. Both the Democrats and Republicans are beholden to corporate interest. I’m in no way going to vote for the Republican but I’m not going to vote for the Democrat either. If they want my vote, they have to earn my vote.
Anyone, I don’t care if it’s Republicans or Democrats. Of course the Democrats are supposed to be the ones who would do this, but they don’t. Obama gave us a head fake of a public option that never happened. Instead what we got is force payments to private health insurance companies.
what i'm asking is (and i think others are too) is: is there any evidence that republicans would support or even propose anything like medicare for all?
for example, is there a draft bill from republicans for such a thing? etc
Yeah they’re not going to give free money to everyone. With the GOP in power you won’t be sleeping in your car, you’ll be in jail because that’s more aligned with their policies.
One's ability to feel superior to people less fortunate than you is a very ingrained psychological factor in a capitalist society. America isn't going to change, unfortunately.
Grades are Important measure of achievement and development in the academic realm. Still, not all students find it simple to keep up consistently good grades. This is where Technocrat Recovery, a well-known resource that focuses on enhancing academic achievement and assisting students in realizing their full potential, comes into play. Technocrat Recovery's track record in academic support services is unmatched. Their knowledge has helped countless students, who have also seen notable gains in their grades. Technocrat Recovery has a proven track record of achievement and a dedication to excellence, making it a trustworthy and credible option for students in need of academic support. Grades are more than just letters on a report card; they serve as indicators of a student's progress and understanding of the material. Good grades reflect a student's dedication, effort, and ability to grasp and apply knowledge. They provide a measure of academic achievement and can open doors to various opportunities in the future. Technocrat Recovery takes a holistic approach to academic improvement, considering various factors that can impact a student's performance. They focus not only on subject-specific knowledge but also on developing essential skills like critical thinking, problem-solving, and effective communication. This comprehensive approach ensures that students are equipped with the necessary tools to excel academically in the long run. You can always rely on Technocrat Recovery
Email: technocratrecovery@contractor.net
WhatsApp: +1-573-356-3708
Official Website: (www.technocraterecovery.site)
145 comments
[ 0.24 ms ] story [ 194 ms ] threadIn the past couple of weeks I've heard multiple news media segments where some talking head is interviewing some "expert" and asking the same question, "Why isn't the public believing the economic news?" Yet neither of them considered: let's ask the public, we can do that.
So here's news on why, and there's a couple disconnect at the top from the middle and the bottom. Yeah, nothing new...until there's an election and the exploited vote to show their frustration. It doesn't - and shouldn't - have to be this way.
Nor is every single case of homelessness necessarily related to the economy.
It used to be the job of the left to argue the opposite.
In my best sarcastic Tucker Carlson voice: "you judge a society by its worst off"
And as near as I can tell the bottommost segment of the American populace is, in material and numerical terms, generally seeing a more positive rate-of-change than pre-COVID; lower-end wages are increasing faster than they have in most of my lifetime and are significantly outpacing the inflation that got everybody hairshirting last year. The thing that the doomer set doesn't love to acknowledge is that so much of that dooming is sourced from precarious tech workers or members of/aspirational members of the media, who are getting hammered (in other words, the economic recovery seems K-shaped) and are in turn using their outsized megaphones to convince everybody else that it's a universal problem.
Not to a liberal (or even Adam Smith). The purpose of a economy is it benefits the people, that's why the people allow "the economy" to exist in the first place, if the common people aren't benefiting the economy isn't doing it's job and therefore cannot be "strong".
It's only strong if you think the economy exists to serve mainly the professional managerial class as well as the elites and perhaps the claims of strength reveal the true thoughts of the speaker.
The Federal gov (read: both parties) can't keep using aggregated numbers to hide the details and the hurting. Ppl aren't that naive any more. The world has changed. The gov's reporting of the economy has not. The more that disconnect widens, the worse the potential for sociopolitical fallout. We've been seeing that and yet how has Uncle Sam adjusted?
Please don't shoot the messenger.
So one way to frame it would be the national economy is doing well despite significant problems in housing supply/demand.
My thing is, even if its not the main issue causing issues with demand, I don't see how you can bring in nearly 3 million "undocumented migrants in a year" who are all going to compete for the lowest tier of the housing market, and outcompete single parents, etc on what they can afford in rent (since many have several adults rooming together and sharing rent). If you only have so many affordable apartments/houses etc to go around in a town/neighborhood/borough, etc, an influx of a few thousand, especially in high population areas is going to drive rents up and create constraints on the market.
https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/immigration/migrant-border-...
It's certainly not helping. I don't see how you can not link these two issues, if you bring in migrants, documented or not (or not migrating through legal methods), they need housing, and its going to be the undocumented ones competing for housing in the sector with our most vulnerable citizens.
There seems to be some level of cognitive dissonance politically, at least in the media, when it comes to these two issues. Maybe those on the ground notice it or have tried to call it out. But if I can see it from my middle class suburbia, I don't see how this is getting missed, if not outright ignored.
All that to say, while certainly a local issue, this is a national issue I feel is at play here that local governments (short of stunts like bussing ppl to Martha's Vineyard or NYC), have no control over.
What tends to bubble up is hatred; calling them dirty and rapists and whatnot. The fear mongering about how migrant caravans are coming to overdose my children with fentanyl or whatever the panic de jour is isn’t helping the cause for me, though it does seem quite effective for many.
On the other end of the economic spectrum, it seems like builders only want to build high end luxury housing where the margins are fat. While I’m sure the ROI on that is nice from a financial standpoint, it doesn’t seem to add much to society for some rich dude to own another mansion that they might spend a month or two in per year. I don’t know if that sort of thing is a huge effect however. It does seem that as wealth inequality ever increases, so do our social problems.
That's a very good question, however you ask it.
A problem when you go looking for the root cause of things, if you can bear to ask "why?" more than five times, is that you can go around in circles or start seeing things that aren't there. That's definitely going to happen if you go looking for the end of rainbow like "The Economy" [0].
Other nebulous categories like "mental health" or "immigration" don't add much to the conversation. but kick the can into someone else's camp.
It also a difficult question because in a sense it's a void question in world where we reduce _everything_ to "economics" - all human affairs, structures and processes - to the point where it seems there's nothing left that lies outside the realm of economics. (Maybe that tells us "economics" has lost its power as a concept word and pursuit, if we have problems that seem to lie outside of it.)
So when I hear someone say "It's not about 'The Economy'" what I'm really hearing isn't "it has nothing to do with economics" (because everything does), but "I don't think economists can understand and fix this". And that's a valid observation - that people who think as economists have a serious blind-spot and defecit of real power.
[0] If there isn't already there should be a South Park episode where "The Economy" is kept in a glass box at the City Hall and Eric steals it to sell at school.
The semantics and bullshit around "social issues" like abortion or LGBT rights is just that - semantics and bullshit intentionally amplified to keep people focused on the wrong thing.
There are two nearly identical sides, as you rightly point out. Just like political parties, where there's the pro-corporate party that's OK with minorities, and the super-pro-corporate party with a little religion mixed in.
The media very much follows that same blueprint.
Politics is relative. The US has a right and a left wing.
https://www.reddit.com/r/TikTokCringe/comments/18jbd11/this_...
We've been doing this in France for decades, but in recent years it was done by French politicians on an extraordinary scale while they claimed to an international audience that they bring more rigor in spending.
I think you did the same on a bigger scale.
This is juicing the metrics. Not changing the metrics.
Juicing is real. Changing is mostly a conspiracy among the uneducated, at least in America.
Edit: Since I can't reply, if your measure doesn't account for unsustainable practices, then its not really a measure, or you're intentionally "changing" the measure to leave out accounting for unsustainable practices. Measuring growth in a fund when its all just a ponzi scheme isn't how we measure fund performance on a report. If this is done, its either intentional or incompetent. Either, is very bad when dictating policy.
This is obviously untrue. An owner of a timber forest may measure how many trees they cut down each year. If they double the rate at which they cut down trees, that doesn't mean the way trees are counted has changed. It means they're harvesting unsustainably.
> then its not really a measure, or you're intentionally "changing" the measure to leave out accounting for unsustainable practices.
No, it's the nature of measures. What gets measured gets managed. The measure is still useful, it's just being read without context.
The degree of unsustainability is widely discussed because there are other measures, also collected and disseminated and picked apart, that characterise it. If you're making personal, commercial or policy decisions based on the headline metric, you should learn more about how to read the metrics as a whole. That isn't a problem with the measures, it's one of education.
Pushing stats like average income being up is misleading and the stock market is inflated by reverse repos. The concentration of market cap in the index is problematic as well.
Reverse repos are still at shockingly high levels but drastically down from their recent highs. So the question is if there is another financial instrument at play that isn't as widely known since the repurchase agreements started taking heat.
Wealth inequality though is the real metric to look at and it's hard to judge but record homelessness is obviously not a good sign.
Not to my knowledge. Contingent employment has always counted as employment for broad measures; this is why many papers discuss non-farm payroll [1] or even full-time employed from surveys [2]. The problem is these data are less precise than broader payroll figures, and so can't be observed month to month nor even quarter to quarter, certainly not real time.
You're discussing an actual measurement problem, one that's been discussed since 2019 [3][4]. But it's cause for changing the metrics, not caused by any change in the metrics.
> the stock market is inflated by reverse repos
This is wrong, but I'm not sure for what reason. Could you explain why you think this?
Repos are a borrowing mechanism. Reverse repo means lending. Yes, lending boosted the stock market. But we're currently in a liquidity-draning environment, so this is a peculiar complaint.
[1] https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/PAYEMS
[2] https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/LNS12500000
[3] https://www.axios.com/2019/04/18/gig-economy-employment-econ...
[4] https://www.dallasfed.org/research/economics/2019/0416
Overnight repurchase agreements give banks seemingly off the books money to invest in commodity and equity markets. They are a direct driver of inflation. Banks are able to maintain positions and their balances by purchasing Treasury products at 11:59pm and having the fed buy them back at 12:01am. They are supposed to be used strictly for emergency liquidity situations but as you can see from the chart we got very far away from that. They are finally coming down but still very high. They are the primary reason for the record inflation.
https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/RRPONTSYD
- Drug usage increasing
- Depression/suicide increasing
- Life expectancy going down as a result of the above
- Homelessness increasing
- People are forced to take gig jobs, but this is somehow counted as fulltime employment.
- Taking people off the unemployment numbers because they haven't been able to find a job for 6 months or may have given up.
- College becoming unaffordable and leading to massive debt
- Housing becoming increasingly unaffordable, middle class households can no longer buy a home (technically to me means they're not really middle class)
I can go on.
Fudging the statistical measures by which we define economic slumps or saying its all cool cause Wall Street is recovering doesn't change what reality is for the average person. Things are getting worse for most people while getting better for smaller portion (wealth disparity increase).
>Fudging the statistical measures by which we define economic slumps or saying its all cool cause Wall Street is recovering doesn't change what reality is for the average person
But so far as I can tell indicators like GDP or unemployment were used for decades, and they haven't changed the methodology for those. Therefore I'm really sure what you mean by "fudging". However all the other indicators that you've listed are real and point to real issues, but aren't traditionally used in economic contexts. If anything changing the goalposts from gdp/unemployment to "Drug usage increasing" or whatever seems much closer to the "fudging" that you're decrying against.
If you think administrations don't fudge the numbers to make themselves look more successful I don't know where you've been. Statistics are easy to mess with, and administrations favor the models that make them look better. It doesn't matter whose in office. Places like WV have seen mass unemployment for decades, but the numbers look better because people have gone on checks or government assistance and given up, thus aren't counted.
It's very telling most of the people here live around economic centers and find it very easy to ignore what stark reality is in most areas of the country. It's easier to believe a fairy tale told by the government, and only be critical of it when the opposing party is in office, when supposedly nothing has changed.
They are counted, there are 6 different unemployment measures and the labor force participation rate, all easily available. So far all I see are nebulous/unfounded claims providing zero evidence.
No one is denying that a certain portion of the population might be worse off, or that volatility is higher for some populations. But the official statistics are not denying that either.
>Unemployment has changed, it used to mean people that want to work but can't find jobs.
It still means that.
>If you lose a full time job and work two part time jobs you're considered fully employed, even though you lost benefits and have to work crazy hours.
This is how full employment has been measured for a long time, so it's not an example of government changing measures to make things look better than they are.
>If you think administrations don't fudge the numbers to make themselves look more successful I don't know where you've been
This is not evidence. It's just a non sequitur.
>Statistics are easy to mess with, and administrations favor the models that make them look better.
Replacing the first conjecture with this one helps nothing. Again, where is the evidence for this statement? Is it a hunch that we're just meant to go along with?
>Places like WV have seen mass unemployment for decades, but the numbers look better because people have gone on checks or government assistance and given up, thus aren't counted.
This is how unemployment has been measured for more than half a century. It is not something that the government has changed to make things look better than they are.
>It's easier to believe a fairy tale told by the government, and only be critical of it when the opposing party is in office, when supposedly nothing has changed.
There is, again, zero evidence in this statement. It is looking more and more like the original assertion, "They've literally been changing the measurements of economic indicators to make things seem better than they are," was made up.
The article’s chart makes the change look more dramatic by using the lowest level as zero bound instead of zero.
We need to eliminate (most) zoning, bring in a bunch of immigrants, train them up on construction, and build moderate-density housing like crazy.
If you're living the suburban dream, there's nowhere to walk (it's all neighbours' lawns), no tram or metro is coming to pick you up, so you need a car to get anywhere. There's traffic on the way in, parking lots when you get there, and you can't even drink.
Low density is low traffic for the simple reason that low density means few people, few people means low traffic.
Too many cities and inner ring suburbs in the US are basically locked in amber and it's a real problem.
EDIT: Though I agree with the goal of "low traffic," and agree with the other commenters that low density areas in the US tend to not be low traffic. (At least not near cities - again, get far enough away from cities if you want low density and low traffic.) I suspect you won't like the ways a city might get there though.
Not that I'd simply delete your planning laws: I would copy the high-level stuff from Europe, and keep whatever your local rules are for fire, hurricane, earthquake, and tornado safety etc.
https://youtu.be/7IsMeKl-Sv0?si=o38eBps-znTt3Cez
But the economy in general is not doing stellar, regardless. This bifurcation of wealth is going to lead, or is at least a marker, of an instability in the system. The fact that the Fed just decided that they’re looking at lowering interest rates means that they can’t lower inflation because the stock market and housing prices will crash. Housing prices increase because money printing increased.
Part of the problem is that the US isn’t one “the economy”, it’s localized, primarily due to housing markets. There is no way that the top 10% of income earners qualify as “upper class” in the US, because the majority are in high COL areas.
When you make $400k/pa, but pay $5k/mo in rent/housing, that’s a very different outcome than making $400k/pa and paying $1k/mo in rent/housing. Both of these situations exist in the US, but the former is much more common than the latter. Looking at income only without accounting for cost of living presents a skewed view of things. The person paying the higher cost of living in this situation is solidly middle class, if and only if they own that property, renters by definition aren’t middle class. The person paying the low cost of living almost certainly owns the property and is able to invest heavily, so is almost certainly upper class or a HENRY.
Earning $90k/pa puts you in the top 10% of income earners, and isn’t even six figures. The new middle class for non-Boomers starts in the top 3%. You only need to earn $300k/pa to be in the vaunted 1%, and in most high COL areas you’ll never be able to afford a house.
Looking at income percentiles without looking at cost of living is a really skewed viewpoint, and it ignores the huge wealth chasm between the top 0.1% and everyone else, even 1%ers struggle to make rent.
You’re only “qualified” for what you can make the down payment on, and starter homes in high CoL areas are nonexistent.
You seem to have rose colored glasses.
>You’re only “qualified” for what you can make the down payment on
You sound like you've never applied for a loan.
>You seem to have rose colored glasses.
You seem to consider only the housing you cannot afford "decent" and then complain as if it's the reality.
1. https://www.zillow.com
If you think something you can buy in SFBA under $1M is livable rather than “bulldoze ready”, you are the one that is out of touch.
It's been also doing great for the lower classes. The bottom quartiles have seen far higher wage growth than the top quartiles.
https://www.atlantafed.org/chcs/wage-growth-tracker
Or rather, unless you put them up in hotels and send them back when done, how do you account for providing them housing when housing is already constrained?
>> when housing is already constrained?
By removing those constraints. OP accounted for this.
It takes two years [1] to get a building permit, and the two-year borrowing rate for the U.S. Treasury is 4.44% [2]. That delay alone will cost a developer at least 10% more.
That permiting process, alone, raises housing costs by double digits [a].
[1] https://www.sfchronicle.com/sf/article/housing-permits-san-f...
[2] https://home.treasury.gov/resource-center/data-chart-center/...
[a] 1.0444 ^ (627/365) = 7.75%
My point is the housing being built isn't going to serve the those who are housing insecure or migrants working construction jobs. If anything these places are taking over the neighborhoods that used to serve that sector.
Why would any of this change developers' profit motive?
> the housing being built isn't going to serve the those who are housing insecure
We agree. This is because housing supply is constrained. That raises its price, which makes it unaffordable for more people. Removing supply constraints changes that.
Also, new luxury housing absolutely lowers housing prices. I've seen it personally. A luxury building opened nearby. I figured there was a 10 to 15% difference after accounting for amenities like its gym, in exchange for more space and a quieter apartment. Others clearly did the math, because we lost two people in the building to it. I showed my math to the landlord, told them I was considering decamping, and negotiated down my rent. I told my neighbours and they each did the same. We had more choices, and so had to pay less. Basic supply and demand.
Developers have the same incentive, they are not incentivized to build properties they'll make less on, even if supply goes up. I've seen lots of properties built, they can be half unoccupied/empty and the rents/leases don't change. They're simply not going to lower the value of their own properties, they'll keep it inflated because at least then it’s a tax write-off/loss.
This increased supply concept is being parroted but no one can provide examples of supply being increased and rents going down, or the very least demand can't be kept up with and no area gets saturated to the point prices go down. Usually the opposite happens, new apartment/housing = nicer neighborhood = more desirable area = rent/housing values go up. We usually call this gentrification. Not unless it was a government subsidized project or section 8 housing or a local economic collapse and people leaving (which cheap rent means little if there are no jobs/economy).
Developers are very risk adverse, they’ll never build in an area that risks supply outstripping demand.
I don't understand how people can live for 20 years, see these patterns and still believe the theories they get taught in economics 101 in school and think they're fully educated on the matter.
Not only do we not see a decrease in house prices and rent prices when new housing is developed, but there’s literally a higher vacancy rate than the amount of housing we’re supposedly short on.
In particular, corporate landlords have figured out that it’s better for their bottom line to keep units vacant than to lower the rent, partly due to plausible deniable collusion via RealPage et al.
No, it’s because of loan covenants. Leveraged landlords can’t lower the rent without defaulting on loans. It works in the short term, and then the market either corrects or they default. (You see the same effect in CRE. And China.)
There have been cases of collusion. I can also cite company towns. These are scandals because they’re an exception; the housing crisis is one across continents.
Sometimes there are international conspiracies. More often, it’s emergent behaviour. Particularly in the landlord market, which features a lot of cottage industry, it’s a bit ridiculous to propose scandals as the universal solution. (Do you really know zero individual landlords?)
> they’ll never build in an area that risks supply outstripping demand
You’ve clearly never been to Phoenix. Or any other city that overbuilt on the back of zealous developers.
> no one can provide examples of supply being increased and rents going down
Literally did in an anecdote. Also Japan.
This has been deeply studied [1]. It’s difficult to find counter examples. Yet we continue to see the gentrification hypothesis parroted because most voters never got past high-school economics, nor learned to read academic papers.
> see these patterns and still believe the theories they get taught in economics 101
I mean, yes. Same here. That said, I’ll take the silver lining: I’m glad I’m a homeowner and can count on folks who think limiting supply will keep the gentrifiers out. (I’m still waiting for my price-fixing membership email.)
[1] https://www.aei.org/wp-content/uploads/2017/04/Overview-Talk...
Overview of the AHAR reports, including data: https://www.huduser.gov/portal/datasets/ahar.html
I encountered so many different types of folks. Some were people down on their luck that needed help. Some had mental problems that (I'm guessing) can never really be fixed. Some had addictions. Some simply enjoyed being homeless.
I think addressing the problem would need to address varying underlying causes. For instance, "just give them jobs" will work for some of these folks, but not for a lot of them.
Affordable housing is of course key to broad housing security for those of sound mind and economics who desire to be housed.
[1]: https://www.jrf.org.uk/housing/providing-personalised-suppor...
Homelessness for San Francisco was a mere PR problem during a state visit. Their is 0 appetite to tackle these social problems. Before implementation comes the actual political will to do something about it.
The one sees in cities are not those at all. Where they have access to shelters or even housing and they prefer to live as homeless instead is overwhelmingly because the housing and shelters are substandard, moldy, they’re exposed to risks of abuse including sexual abuse, they may not be allowed to bring their pets in, they may have addictions that they will be asked to wean off cold turkey (both understandable from the housing/shelter point of view, but it’s also obvious why someone addicted to a substance would not be able to do this), etc.
In my interactions I was genuinely surprised by the really large percentage of homeless who preferred to live on the streets (even in the winter) over decent shelters without many of these risks, because of pets not being allowed. For many the companionship with the pets are quite literally keeping them sane, and there’s no way they’d give them up, and yet the vast majority of shelters have a no pet policy (again, understandable, but it still is a contributing problem).
Now, there are definitely a few homeless who have mental health issues. And unfortunately, for obvious reasons those are the ones most people are likely to encounter (the sane homeless people prefer to stay out of the way and would prefer avoiding people altogether because of the shame and the judgment they’d encounter to begin with). So most people’s (including mine until I started volunteering with organizations that worked directly with homeless people) estimation of homeless people is based on this tiny minority at one extreme. Which is unfortunate because it makes passing actual useful policy that will help the homeless and reduce homelessness and all the issues that come with it, very difficult to bring into force.
The few shelters I've looked into have a huge list of rules that are strictly enforced which quickly turned me away. And they were in old, run down, dirty buildings. It almost seemed like they didn't want anybody to use the shelters, and very few appeared to be using them.
Just as an example, one young man I spent a lot of time with had a family that wanted him to come home, but who wouldn't let him smoke weed in the house. I wouldn't have called him an addict by any stretch, but it was something he was unwilling to give up. He was a strong, able bodied guy that could have gotten a job. Despite all of this, he decided he'd rather live on the streets and do what he wants. (Could he have had severe mental problems and be making all of this up? Sure, but I don't believe that he did).
It's actually the biggest reason I stopped volunteering. Over the years that I volunteered, I noticed a steady shift from people who really need and/or want help to a large number of people like the young man I described. When helping out the homeless people you can't pick or choose or make judgements, so you treat everyone equally. But it became very hard to hand out things like sleeping bags to folks like that young man and then see people who really did have nothing unable to get one.
But, yes, in your example if you offer anyone a free million dollar house they will take it over living on the streets, but I don't think that's a very realistic comparison.
Also, to be clear, I'm just some dude. I don't have any realistic answers to fix the problem.
That is because mental/psychological healthcare is completely broken in the US.
Im currently dealing with the system for a family member, and I am shocked at just how hard it is to get help. Ignore the financials, most psych hospitals won’t treat you and have zero interest in keeping you longer than absolutely necessary. The one my family member went to twice didn’t even set them up with a treatment plan or doctors/psychiatrists/psychologists when they were released.
My homelessness exacerbates my mental illness, not only because of the stress of living out of a van but also the inability to have consistent healthcare being that I have to drive to warmer temperatures or cooler temperatures depending on the season.
And the treatments for psychiatric diseases are still stuck back about 50 years. I’ve had to run my own genetics and do my own research to find out what would help me. I mostly done it no help to any doctor or physician or psychiatrist.
Many people act like homeless people don’t want to get better, but I’m doing everything I can and no one is helping me absolutely no one. Psychiatrist who take Medicare have zero investigative initiative and psychiatric awards are for profit hotels for the mentally ill.
If anyone has a positive view of this country and the goodness of the people of this country, I want to dissuade you of that notion.
I am currently parking at Walmart in Palm Springs, California. The amount of wealth I see driving around me in vehicles alone could end homelessness in this country.
When I bring this up here, I’m told that these people just need to engage with some system and they’ll be well taken care of. I have seen no evidence of this myself; as the article and your experience would suggest, it’s just the opposite.
The best someone can have going for them is a family member with money, but the mentally ill tend to burn their last bridges quite often.
Further, while the US is seeing major shortages of mental health care providers, most European countries are even worse off, in large part because there's no class of master's-degree-holding therapists -- you either get a doctoral-level degree, or you just attend some basic courses and call yourself a therapist with no licensing or regulatory bodies governing your practice.
I'd actually argue that the US's system is better than most other western nations' mental health care systems -- which is not a statement in favour of the US, but an indictment of other nations' approaches.
(Source for my data and opinions here: I'm an American immigrant to the UK, and my wife has a master's degree in clinical mental health counselling - she only practised for about a year before she quit because the system is so broken in the US.)
And all homeless have something in common: they are homeless. Yes, most of them have other problems in addition, but once they have housing they have one less problem and the other problem is likely to be easier to treat or handle once they have their housing situation sorted out.
Pandemic-era social safety net programs expired throughout the year, such as income protections and eviction moratoria.”
Pretty terrible reporting tbh. The above seems to be the executive summary. Also worth noting it’s the highest count since 2007, which is interesting on its own. Why was 2007 so high?
https://www.reuters.com/article/banks-writedowns-losses-idCN...
It's obvious that this creates a misleading perception among the public about the causes of people living outside the social norm of paying for the right to stay in a private space.
The danger of that is that when unchecked, the public votes and government acts based on this misconception. That converts to public policy which aims to solve the wrong problem at the cost of the wrong people.
It does not work like that. You don't elect addiction, it is not a choice. Quitting is also not easy.
Try to have some empathy for people instead of judging their situation, you don't know what led to it.
If we don’t look for it then it doesn’t exist.
At least the username checks out.
I used to travel around the world and cannot believe that US couldn't solve or is blind about this problem. It shocks me to be in the "country of technology dreams" while I look at the state of many people there. Only think in tech-noir movies.
Actually, homelessness is easy to solve, but requires distasteful actions by the government, like involuntary commitment.
https://oecdecoscope.blog/2021/12/13/finlands-zero-homeless-...
> The number of homeless people in Finland has continuously decreased over the past three decades from over 16 000 in 1989 to around 4 000, or 0.08% of the population
All these issues are dealt with at the level of the municipality and the state, the federal government has significantly less power here. Now, I am no expert in affordable housing programs, if someone who has done more research on this topic would like to come and correct me, they are welcome. But this is my basic impression from what I've seen.
American local governments go out of their way to do everything as if they’re the only ones facing an issue, and I think solving that tendency in American governance is likely way harder than solving anything in the homelessness space.
Even outside of that there are very large downsides for local governments to handle such issues because any successful system would likely attract more people from other parts of the country which would put an even greater financial burden on local taxpayers. Considering cities are cutting services like libraries, etc. it’s a huge disincentive for any local government to enact an actual effective solution.
The problem isn't with high-density affordable housing but with building housing that segregates people based on income level. High-density development is a good thing generally and makes a neighborhood more varied and vibrant in my view.
The problem comes from concentrating poverty into a single location. Instead, the United States should spread it out evenly with affordable housing throughout our cities and neighborhoods. The development patterns in the United States end up with two extremes: single family houses or large apartment blocks, with nothing in between (the missing middle problem). There is a lot of implicit segregation by income there, even at the single family housing level, since different housing developments tend to build roughly the same size house repeatedly in any given development. Rather than building neighborhoods where everyone has roughly the same income level, as the United States does now, it would be better to build neighborhoods that can accept people of all income levels. That way, the problems associated with poverty and similar issues are diluted throughout a city and never concentrated.
What a lot of people don't understand is that the policy inadequacies that led to this point are mostly state-based, and in CA, cities simply couldn't do much about strung-out junkies on their streets once city councils started experimenting with decriminalizing drug use and deprioritizing drug enforcement. It's not like arresting them was a great solution, but it was the only thing available to city police forces, and it kept these people out of the public eye. Once that was removed as a tool, they were pretty much left with "Unless they're actively threatening someone, nothing we can really do."
That's changing, mercifully. Here in SF, a lefty-fringe position took over for a while, wherein homelessness with thought of as some sort of legitimate lifestyle, and society had to be forced to see it so we could all gaze upon the misery that tech money had wrought. After a while though, normal people just get sick of having to step over an unconscious body while taking their kids out for a walk.
While it's tempting to blame Reagan for the contemporary homeless problem, I'm not sure that's really right. Reagan was a giant piece of shit, but I don't find it plausible that his policy decisions in 1980 were the proximate cause of the homeless problem that started taking off in the late 2000s.
Personally I think a lot of the homeless problem comes down to two things that worked together to produce unintended consequences.
1. Opioids
2. Evolving attitudes toward drug use
Opioids are a scourge that created lots of new addicts. At the same time, society finally started realizing that criminalizing drug use was stupid. So the first thing to happen was the easiest: we stopped throwing people in prison. But it's not like these were people who had their lives together in the first place -- they had problems, and previously the prison system is how we dealt with those problems and kept them out of public view. And simultaneously, we were seeing an explosion of addicts thanks for opioids and pharma marketing. So lots more addicts plus lots less enforcement means lots more homelessness.
Now we're in a transitional phase where we're trying to figure out the best way to help these people and maintain their dignity. In the mean time, they live in tents on the street for everyone to see. CA is now codifying the obvious -- these people cannot care for themselves, and law-abiding citizens have a right to use public sidewalks without having to worry that a guy in a tent will think they're trespassing.
Let me tell you, the economy isn’t doing great for people like me. I’m permanently disabled and lost my housing at the beginning of Covid, and I haven’t been able to acquire housing since. For the last three years I’ve been living in a 2001 minivan. Now I’m seeing costs everything go up and the COKA adjustment for Social Security isn’t quite doing it.
Mark my words, were going to have a different party running the country next year. The Democrats have failed people like me, the people that used to be their base, and instead favored the corporate class who allowed the financial capitalist to buy up All the homes so they can rent them at outrageous prices.
Reading that article would be a start. They could also expand section 8 housing. They could also get rid of the countless nonprofits that siphon money away from the homeless. They could tie Social Security cola adjustments more towards housing and rental prices.
They Institute Medicare for all. They could ban the emptying of large amounts of houses by financial capital firms. Which they are already doing sort of. They could end Airbnb. They could ban making it illegal to sleep in a car or sleep on the street.
Or they can just really care.
I could go on, but again this is not a problem of not having the money, I mean we’re supporting two useless wars right now. This is a problem of people not caring or caring for the wrong things.
for example, is there a draft bill from republicans for such a thing? etc
https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/One-party_state
A few days ago there was a recent story shared on HN describing a perfect example of why it's become so difficult to solve this horrible problem:
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=38627492
Email: technocratrecovery@contractor.net WhatsApp: +1-573-356-3708 Official Website: (www.technocraterecovery.site)