The Minneapolis Federal Reserve has a paper on inflation where the author gathers stats by race and location, among other indicators. Starting with race:
In a recent interview, New York Fed economist Rajashri Chakrabarti told me the transportation component of the basket was a significant factor that drove inflation for Hispanic households more than 1.5 percentage points above average. As vehicle and gas prices normalized, housing inflation became the more important factor, with a disproportionate effect on Asian households. But by mid-2023, the differences by race were again small.
The New York Fed also deflates each group’s weekly earnings by its respective inflation rate. This shows that after all the fluctuations in recent years, earnings adjusted for inflation have taken a slight step backward from pre-pandemic across the board (Figure 6). And there has been little change in the relative inequality across the groups.
Melancholy Jaques
I get that prices went up, but I don’t get how putting a corrupt, lying bigot who tried to overthrow the government was thought to be the solution to high prices. I know we can’t call them stupid, god for fucking bid we do that, but anyone who believes that the people they vote for control the price of gasoline – after fifty fucking years of gas price ups & downs – is stupid.
Baud
@Melancholy Jaques:
It doesn’t. We have the experience of 2000 and 2016 to tell us that we can’t win on the economy if people feel a loss of status.
Ohio Mom
Off topic, Ohio Family has just ordered at one of the Haitian restaurants in Springfield (not quite an hour and half drive from home).
It’s in a strip mall, pretty bare bones decor, as many of our favorite ethnic restaurants are. Nice peppy Haitian music filling the air, a contrast to the rainy grey weather outside.
We are the only white people here. I’ll report back on the food later.
B1naryS3rf
@Melancholy Jaques: you have to imagine how the average ignoramus sees it. Stuff cheaper under 45 Trump = put Trump back. Stuff not as bad for me personally under Trump as screeching Democrats said = put Trump back. Pandemic not Trump’s fault and I survived anyway, or didn’t it actually all happen once Biden got in? = put Trump back.
There’s a reason online scammers profit by hundreds of billions a year.
Almost Retired
@Melancholy Jaques: It’s stupid, but they do seem to believe that the President can influence the price of gas. Drill Baby Drill! Frack Baby Frack! Less environmental regulation! Voila! Cheap gas for the pickup truck.
B1naryS3rf
@Ohio Mom: bless you for doing so. I still get small fits of rage when I remember Trump and Vance pushing the lies that almost led to a pogrom. And if it had, they probably would’ve gotten away with it too. I hope those folks will somehow survive and thrive for the next however many years and curse this state and that community for not sticking up for them more.
m.j.
Maybe rural residents suffer worse, but the wave of bad has long since passed and they don’t reach back in time far enough to blame those responsible.
hitchhiker
Haven’t we always known how easy it is to manipulate great masses of people? Unashamedly using that knowledge for personal or institutional gain is what we’re looking at. You might say it’s the American way.
The new wrinkle is the unashamed part. When I want to feel admiration for human beings, one of the things I do is watch the film, Spotlight, in which a few reporters do the leg work in 2001 to expose the Boston Archdiocese’s practice of hiding and hiring priests they knew were molesting kids.
The church could be shamed. Who can be shamed now? Yes, we’re greedy, so what? Yes, we think women are 2nd class, what are you going to do about it? Sure, we think people of color are lazy and stupid, what’s your point?
I can almost imagine the Catholic authorities saying publicly what they were telling each other at the time:
Look, this is the price of doing business if we’re going to keep celibacy, and anyway it’s not that bad, and we’re very proud of the work we do here and around the world. These survivors are exaggerating and look at all the attention you’re giving them! That’s what they really want. They’re the sick ones. Most of them are probably faking it anyway.
Like that. Loudly and proudly. That’s what we have now in our government and media. So, manipulate the public with caravans and false stories about corruption, and when you’re caught lying or cheating or whatever, just laugh because you don’t know what shame is.
TBone
@B1naryS3rf: as is also the case with a pet bugaboo, Medicare “Advantage.”
Melancholy Jaques
@hitchhiker:
If it’s so easy, how come we can’t do it?
m.j.
@hitchhiker:
Shame.
I’m not even sure what that is anymore. Is there an app. Does it have a slider to give me an idea of the amount of shame I should expect to be exposed to. I assume it has updates.
Melancholy Jaques
@Baud:
One problem is that the loss of status is mostly in their imaginations, so it’s almost impossible to counter. Realities like “Joe Biden saved our pensions” didn’t penetrate the minds of the Teamsters.
Anyway
what was the loss of status in 2000? And to whom?
Leto
@Ohio Mom: I would be very interested in hearing about this experience!
Chetan Murthy
Wait, really? My understanding was that wages had kept up with inflation. Here’s two posts from Kevin Drum about this very subject. On the subject of overall inflation vs. wages, this has been reported in many places. maybe all the statistics are cooked, but that seems unlikely. And the second post is about rural versus Urban wages. Drum’s analysis seems to show that in fact Rural wages went up more than Urban wages by a lot.
https://jabberwocking.com/wage-growth-has-been-sluggish-for-the-past-three-years/
https://jabberwocking.com/wages-plummeted-in-big-cities-over-the-past-four-years/
Baud
@Anyway:
Big white Christian backlash to Clinton.
beckya57
@Baud: the 70’s-80’s and 2024 also tell us that voters care more about suppressing inflation than avoiding recession. Sucks but Dems need to learn this lesson.
Baud
@beckya57:
Liberals owe Obama an apology then.
ETA: And Biden.
Ohio Mom
@Leto:
We have been meaning to come here ever since Springfield was in the news. It’s just enough of a drive that we never got around to it. And having been to Springfield before, a rather shabby town, it’s not like we were coming here for any other reason.
The restaurant’s clientele was mostly men, I guess the women are home with the kids? People were very quiet. Not a lot of talking going on. Maybe it was us? We sorta stuck out. Whatever spate of white people showing support must have run its course months ago.
The servings were huge but the food had obviously been under a heat lamp for several hours. So no stars for food quality.
I had fried chicken — four drumsticks under a mound of raw onions and red peppers, circled by fried plantains. Ohio Son had cubes of pork, also under a mound of raw onions and red peppers, Ohio Dad had vegetable stew and rice and beans. I like the stew the best.
It was definitely home-cooked food in a mom-and-pop storefront.
I just feel sorry for anyone from a tropical climate having to adjust to all this dark, cold, soggy weather.
Now we off to a drive through the countryside to look at a covered bridge.
Geminid
@beckya57: It wasn’t just inflation that hurt Biden. For most of 2023 and 2024 he was hit with a doblble whammy: high inflation and high interest rates.
I debit this situation to the Federal Reserve which in 2021 let too many months of high inflation pass before raising interests rates. The rates were very low going into this period so in effect, the Fed kept its foot on the accelerator and then slammed on the brakes.
Martin
That was a significant contributor to the 2007 housing crisis. Cheap gas and housing prices drove a lot of workers to the exurbs, where mortgage brokers specialized in selling subprime mortgages on the promise that those exurbs would increase significantly in value and create local jobs – buyers just needed to do the long commute for now. When gas prices nearly tripled from 2002 to 2007, workers found themselves with these long commutes which were now costing them as much as their mortgage and they couldn’t afford both. Here in CA at least, you saw construction workers trading in their F-150 for a Prius because they needed the gas savings. That would only go so far.
I suspect that insurance, and not gas, is going to be the more durable problem. Larger, more expensive vehicles along with increased risk of damage from climate change is driving huge increases in automotive insurance rates and I don’t see any possibility of that trend ending.
Martin
@Baud: Why do you think the loss of economic status wasn’t a part of ‘the economy sucks’ message? A growing problem with college admission stress has been the perceived erosion of status due to social media giving the impression that applicants need to be more accomplished than statistically they need to be. These ‘look at me’ aspects of social media give a distorted impression of what ‘normal’ accomplishment is – including economically.
There are studies that show that people who consume more social media place ‘middle class’ as requiring more wealth than people who consume less. It’s not enough to keep up with your neighbors, you need to keep up with your follows.
Martin
@Melancholy Jaques: My theory is that people feel that the current economic system takes money that should be going to the working class and sends it to the investor class to an unfair degree.
They didn’t care about Trump personally, they saw him as someone who was promising to change the status quo over Harris/Biden who promised to maintain it. That Trump was more likely to make the situation worse was either something they didn’t think forward to (instead choosing to believe his rhetoric) or was a risk they were willing to take.
That’s why I thought the response to Luigi was so telling – a lot of people in both parties saw taking down a member of that class as being acceptable.
The Audacity of Krope
Wait, I’ve heard this idea before…
Poe Larity.
The number of millionaires tripled under Biden. What an ungrateful lot.
TBone
I read that the private prison industrial complex is clamoring for investors for money to build the “deportation” camps. I didn’t know this about Alabama but damn. No fucking wonder
https://bsky.app/profile/fancysplace.bsky.social/post/3lehslb2wv22x
Have not researched so cannot verify yet. I’m on my way though.
Didn’t take long
https://apnews.com/article/prison-to-plate-inmate-labor-investigation-alabama-3b2c7e414c681ba545dc1d0ad30bfaf5
Read it and weep is all I can say. Just watched Cool Hand Luke again yesterday.
Quinerly
I haven’t followed BJ for at least 10 plus days now. Has anyone posted/discussed the fact that homelessness is up 18% under Biden?
Having lived in an inner city neighborhood in St. Louis for so long, I really wasn’t rattled by our street people. We had 2 homeless shelters in the neighborhood and I served Thanksgiving meals for several years at one shelter. The shelters and the population were just facts of life.
I am coming off my first visit to Tucson, AZ. 9 days. Was in a lovely AirBnB in one of of the barrio neighborhoods near several city parks. Obviously a Blue city…..university city. I was appalled by the trash everywhere. And, I mean everywhere. Bags piled up, plastic, wrappers blowing around. Bins overflowing. Huge homeless population in the parks. Older men. Aggressive panhandling to a point I couldn’t even walk my dog in the morning without problems. JoJo came close to biting one guy who wouldn’t leave us alone. After that, I didn’t go near the parks in the area. I am hesitant to write this as I know we have some commenters here with Tucson roots. I took a dip into some of the FB community bulletin boards…lots of locals very upset with Democratic leadership.
Sure, we have homeless in Santa Fe and Albuquerque. Honestly though, you can’t compare what I see here to what I saw and experienced in Tucson.
Biden’s economy might be good for some of us but not for all. That’s obvious. I can certainly understand how low information voters see parks filled with trash and homeless and think Bidenomics was a failure.
Didn’t make it to Phoenix so don’t know what the situation there is.
Hope everyone had a great Christmas.
MomSense
@Martin:
In Maine, 79% of the population can’t afford a median priced home. Rents are through the roof everywhere but especially in the cities where the jobs are. If you have to move away from the city because of housing costs then you have to deal with transportation costs. We are dependent on automobiles and they are expensive to insure, maintain and fuel. Add student loans, health insurance, and increasing utility costs and it’s impossible to get ahead for most.
Peke Daddy
@Almost Retired: The thing is, POTUS does have influence over gas prices, through use of the Strategic Petroleum Reserve to disrupt short selling.
https://usafacts.org/did-releasing-oil-from-the-strategic-petroleum-reserve-impact-gas-prices/
Peke Daddy
@Quinerly: Build more housing. But that affects home prices for current owners. Non starter.
MomSense
@Quinerly:
Portland Maine literally smells like shit. We had people living in the dumpster behind my office. I was verbally accosted many times just trying to walk to my car.
Baud
RIP Jimmy Carter.
TBone
@MomSense: this seems to be a trend
https://www.insidehighered.com/news/2020/01/28/northeastern-university-launches-100-million-research-center-maine
It’s for AI and I’m wondering if it’s been built in Portland as advertised.
TBone
@Baud: aaarrrrghh
Baud
@TBone:
He died in time for Biden to preside over his funeral ceremonies.
TBone
@Baud: silver lining but still I’m old and sad today.
Quinerly
@MomSense:
Always good to see your nym.
I assume the situation you are speaking of has gotten worse in the last 4 years.
The homeless population I encountered in Tucson was very different than what I see here in Santa Fe. For the most part my interactions here are with young men under 30 with dogs. I see some of the same guys over and over and try to help them with money and dog food. Some women in their 40’s…I encounter them near Lowe’s. The Tucson population appeared to be heavily skewed older male. Lots of wheelchairs. Yes, wheelchairs. Lots of tents just set up on vacant gravel parking lots. I really had no business even trying to walk in Santa Rita Park. Armory Park wasn’t much better, though.
Lapassionara
@Baud: yes. Thank goodness. Maybe Trump will not even attend.
Quinerly
@Baud:
And, that’s a very good thing. I have been thinking about him and timing. Also, am concerned about Bill and his health.
TBone
@TBone: not wondering anymore
https://roux.northeastern.edu/
@mistermix.bsky.social
@Chetan Murthy:
The linked paper has a section with this:
Chetan Murthy
@@mistermix.bsky.social: whoa, that’s the first time I’ve ever seen such reporting (that inflation outpaced wage growth) from a source like the Fed. I’ll watch for more on this. Thank you!
tam1MI
He has been looking terribly unwell recently. I think if he passes in the next four years, Speaker Johnson and whoever the Majority Leader in the Senate will be will pointedly not make the traditional offer for him to lie in state in the Capitol rotunda.
hitchhiker
@Melancholy Jaques: Not trying.
Dem focus has been — in my political life — attempting to do shit, for better or for worse. It’s never been about manipulating people in the way the Rs do so well.
Quinerly
Fun personal facts…I have no living relatives. Did extensive estate planning 3 years ago. If there is anything left when I check out, it all goes to the Carter Center.
Cherished memory was a trip to Plains, GA. Attended one of Pres Carter’s Sunday School classes. And, I have waited in line for 3 of his book signings.
And, as Baud pointed out…..so happy that he passed during Biden’s Administration.
MomSense
@TBone:
Roux is still renting space. They were on the same street as my old office. They bought the old B&M factory which was flooded badly in the terrible storms last January.
MomSense
@Quinerly:
Good to see you! Hope you and jojo are enjoying your travels.
The homeless population has grown significantly and there have been many issues with the tent cities.
Martin
@The Audacity of Krope: Yes, but people need to internalize it.
MagdaInBlack
@@mistermix.bsky.social: So those of us who said we are struggling despite all the “good economic indicators” maybe actually ARE struggling, not just ignoring the “good economic indicators?”
Imagine that.
Quinerly
@MomSense:
We had a great time in Winslow Christmas Eve and Christmas Day. Our third Christmas in the FDR Room at the historic La Posada Hotel.
JoJo is not the road warrior that Poco was. JoJo is a true homebody and was miserable in Tucson. He did love Hereford/Bisbee area, though. We hightailed it home on 12/26.
2600 miles. A little over 3 weeks. Was time to get back to JoJo’s Native Lands.
gene108
Part of the problem is wage stagnation over the last 50 years, which reversed a bit in the late 1990’s, but did not rise much during the following years until the end of Obama’s second term.
There were price spikes from 2004 to 2008, as the price of oil soared.
All of this has eroded people’s purchasing power.
To reverse this requires a New Deal level effort, which we do not have the political will to do.
Starfish (she/her)
@Martin: Did you see that CNN article from last week about how social media was stressing kids out about college? My husband’s parents were talking about how stressed his sister’s oldest child was about college applications, and every time we would hang up the phone, I was like “WTF?! None of the colleges she is applying to are all that competitive, and she is an all A student.”
tam1MI
Joe Biden tried, and we all saw what happened to him.
gene108
@Starfish (she/her):
My cousin has a sophomore in college and a high school senior.
Gen Z is apparently a small population boom, which makes getting into college harder. More people the same age applying at the same time.
From talking with him, there have been his friends kids who got rejected that would not have been like a decade ago.
Though, the shakeout of people deferring to attend college due to COVID isn’t adding to the application pool like it did a couple of years ago.
Starfish (she/her)
@gene108: From what I have seen from talking to people in their twenties and younger, they do not have a strong grasp of the acceptance rate at the universities they are applying to or attending.
There was some freak out, from an all-A student from a state with a solid education system, about not being able to get in a state school of some other state with a much weaker educational system. The state schools from other states want those out of state tuition dollars, and they will likely take you.
Someone was telling me her college acceptance rate was something extremely low, like Harvard level low. I looked up the college, and the acceptance rate was much higher, and it was the type of school that has a lot fewer women than men so all those things worked in her favor.
The people making TikToks about being A++ students that didn’t get accepted seem to be a lot of Asian students in California applying to competitive schools in California. Apply to schools in any other state you genius children.
How are they all this smart and also this dumb?
Martin
@@mistermix.bsky.social: Here in CA a report in the last week showed that wage growth among lower earners outpaced that for higher earners. That’s like a combination of continued turmoil for tech workers pushing one of the higher wage groups down, combined with rising minimum wage for low earners – with fast food now at $20/hr here.
One thing that has been revealed with that higher wage at the low end – jobs increased pretty substantially among that group, contradicting the conventional wisdom. Turns out, when you pay people better, they stay in their job longer, and job openings within that category decline because turnover is lower. At the previous minimum wage, it was estimated that 25% of job positions were unfilled and that number has dropped a fair bit. Anyone who has hit a restaurant only to find that the dining room was closed and only the drive through open because the restaurant only had two employees – one to do all of the cooking and one to run the window and help with the cooking – has seen that effect.
Martin
@Starfish (she/her): Yeah, it’s an old phenomenon (we first observed it 2010-ish.). Good to see some mainstream reporting on it.
Social media has two biases:
Martin
@Starfish (she/her): There’s a good reason for that. Depending on state, that acceptance window has gotten really narrow. That’s not the case in states like Ohio where like Ohio State is kind of struggling to find students, but in NY, CA it’s the opposite where competition has gotten really strong. Most state schools used to have a pretty broad GPA range, even schools like UCLA, and that’s narrowed a LOT.
Plus, eligibility in the local context means that you can’t compare GPAs and test scores between schools, which makes it hard even within a state to compare to other kids at other schools. There are tools provided to schools to help students understand within their school how competitive they are, but they are too often not used, or not believed, because ‘I saw this kid on social media get into this school with a 3.7’ and, yeah, he went to a school with no APs and no ability to earn a 4.2. You did, and so there’s a much higher expectation on GPA from your school, because the public colleges are for the most part taking the same % of students from each school – and if that goes down to a 3.7 in an underfunded district so be it, and if that only goes down to a 4.1 in a well funded one, well, that’s the expectation.
The information is provided, and it’s accurate (validating that was one of the things I did) but it’s not always believed over the perception. And it’s a complicated system that people don’t really take the time to understand.