I wasn’t real explicit about it, but my point was more that the results he cited were coming from places where the “before” picture was rent of $600/mo during the pandemic, and so it’s not reasonable to say it went up by 57% after that, and so that’s the rate of housing inflation.
For 2016-2020 the metric was stock indexes and GDP, for 2020-present it seems to be CPI and unemployment
I’ll take wages at different percentiles, and average wages, as a pretty good metric. Your criticisms of the other metrics I’ll agree with. In particular, unemployment gets a ton of play for how shitty a metric it is overall if you really look at how it’s calculated.
Your implication that if they only were looking at the other metrics (in particular hours worked as an explanation for why rising wages may not mean anything)… I mean, it makes sense, but do you know that that’s actually happening? As opposed to, if it were happening then it’d paint a different picture?
There are a growing number of ways people fall through the cracks of economic instability and the averages are designed to throw those out as exceptions.
I partly agree and partly don’t. So, the fed actually does keep track of a survey that tries to get at this stuff -I think this is it. Like, okay forget the metrics, what’s the average financial reality look like for the average American. It’s actually pretty fascinating reading, both because it agrees with you in parts (shows places where the metrics aren’t showing the full picture), and because it’s a way of getting at that idea without abandoning the idea of being rigorous.
But also, you can’t set economic policy because “hey my brother’s out of work and he’s struggling, isn’t that important? Don’t tell me things are good.” You have to try to get at the broad scale of what’s going on. Like am I supposed to not care about a million truck drivers, and stop doing the stuff that got them another $6/hr? The point is let’s pick the right metrics and try to help the most people, not just say my brother’s doing bad so let’s not use metrics anymore.
So what are you saying we should do instead? If anything I’m saying sounds like “let’s not give them another $20/hr instead”, that is not at all what I am saying.
Idk ma, I feel like I’m just rehashing all my bullet points again. Me saying, wages went up and that’s good, is meaning to be yelling at and disagreeing with the people who say NO THEY WENT WAY DOWN AND THE GUY WHO MADE IT HAPPEN IS EVIL. It’s not at all meaning, they’re high enough or things are good for working people.
Being rigorous isn’t always meaning the metrics are wrong or you don’t care about the individual behind the aggregate. Saying you don’t want to be rigorous and focus on anecdotes instead, is usually a sign of something pretty dishonest though. That isn’t helping anyone who’s struggling, it is in service of something that is hurting them.