John Voorheis
@johnvoorheis.bsky.social
Principal Economist, US Census Bureau
I study people, places, businesses and the environment
Opinions are not my employer's, my coauthors nor mine (in expectation)
I study people, places, businesses and the environment
Opinions are not my employer's, my coauthors nor mine (in expectation)
The thing is that poverty lines are in some sense always going to be arbitrary, the whole point is having something you can compare to over time.
I'm totally sympathetic to the idea we have a higher standard of precarity now. But you just need to apply that consistently over time.
I'm totally sympathetic to the idea we have a higher standard of precarity now. But you just need to apply that consistently over time.
November 24, 2025 at 8:43 PM
The thing is that poverty lines are in some sense always going to be arbitrary, the whole point is having something you can compare to over time.
I'm totally sympathetic to the idea we have a higher standard of precarity now. But you just need to apply that consistently over time.
I'm totally sympathetic to the idea we have a higher standard of precarity now. But you just need to apply that consistently over time.
This is rightly getting a lot of opprobrium for good reasons, but the meta lesson here is that back of the envelope math and tech/finance guy self-regard is a great way to get engagement and also a bad way to learn true facts about the world
Mike Green is writing some amazing stuff at the moment. It's not in the delta, it's in the level and the cost structure. Read this and you will understand Angrynomics on a new level: www.yesigiveafig.com/p/part-1-my-...
Part 1: My Life Is a Lie
How a Broken Benchmark Quietly Broke America
www.yesigiveafig.com
November 24, 2025 at 3:27 PM
This is rightly getting a lot of opprobrium for good reasons, but the meta lesson here is that back of the envelope math and tech/finance guy self-regard is a great way to get engagement and also a bad way to learn true facts about the world
AGI is just astrology for smart computer boys
November 21, 2025 at 3:12 AM
AGI is just astrology for smart computer boys
Show me the lie
One of the vice principals at the kids’ school went to Ohio and has been giving me tons of shit this year, O-Hing at me with his hands in the drop off line and such. Drives me nuts. So, I got him a present in preparation for The Game this year. Go Blue!
November 20, 2025 at 11:46 PM
Show me the lie
For household surveys that only collect householder information (e.g. the SCF, HVS), claims like "Millennials are doing better than previous generations" are just picking up increasingly positively selected householders if household formation differs across generations and is related to resources
November 19, 2025 at 1:33 AM
For household surveys that only collect householder information (e.g. the SCF, HVS), claims like "Millennials are doing better than previous generations" are just picking up increasingly positively selected householders if household formation differs across generations and is related to resources
Sharply progressive income and wealth taxation should be understood as a public health intervention targeting a vulnerable subpopulation
As with every #GildedAge, the ultra-wealthy retreat further into their corners.
@wsj.com
www.wsj.com/lifestyle/tr...
@wsj.com
www.wsj.com/lifestyle/tr...
November 16, 2025 at 3:57 PM
Sharply progressive income and wealth taxation should be understood as a public health intervention targeting a vulnerable subpopulation
Yea fuck that guy pretty much
The emails have Summers reporting to Epstein about his attempts to date a Harvard economics student & to hit on her during a seminar she was giving.
November 16, 2025 at 12:03 AM
Yea fuck that guy pretty much
no one actually believes in meritocracy in the lurch is the thing
November 15, 2025 at 6:51 PM
no one actually believes in meritocracy in the lurch is the thing
Men will literally sabotage their wives careers doing dumbass stock gambling instead of going to therapy
NEW: Adriana Kugler, who abruptly left the Fed, repeatedly violated the central bank’s trading rules.
New disclosures show trades in individual stocks, like Apple, Southwest Airlines and Cava, many of which took place during the blackout period ahead of policy votes www.nytimes.com/2025/11/15/b...
New disclosures show trades in individual stocks, like Apple, Southwest Airlines and Cava, many of which took place during the blackout period ahead of policy votes www.nytimes.com/2025/11/15/b...
Former Fed Official Violated Trading Rules, Disclosures Show
www.nytimes.com
November 15, 2025 at 3:49 PM
Men will literally sabotage their wives careers doing dumbass stock gambling instead of going to therapy
Reposted by John Voorheis
Benjamin Couillard’s job market paper finds rising housing costs explain 51% of the decline in US total fertility rate between the 2000s and 2010s, and we’d have 11% more births since 1990 without rising costs. Any economics care to opine on the methodology? drive.google.com/file/d/1BK6j...
BKC_JMP.pdf
drive.google.com
November 15, 2025 at 2:26 AM
Benjamin Couillard’s job market paper finds rising housing costs explain 51% of the decline in US total fertility rate between the 2000s and 2010s, and we’d have 11% more births since 1990 without rising costs. Any economics care to opine on the methodology? drive.google.com/file/d/1BK6j...
Homeownership is supposed to be a sign of passing into adulthood but paradoxically creates the whiniest babies ever
November 15, 2025 at 12:23 AM
Homeownership is supposed to be a sign of passing into adulthood but paradoxically creates the whiniest babies ever
If I was going to watch one quarter of football today, I guess its good it was Indiana-Penn State
November 8, 2025 at 8:32 PM
If I was going to watch one quarter of football today, I guess its good it was Indiana-Penn State
The whole Walmart Thanksgiving thing is actually a cool moment to teach people about inflation. The 2024 version has both more and higher quality items than the 2025 version, it's not a fixed basket of goods! You need to adjust for the substitution effects to accurate compare prices!
November 6, 2025 at 3:01 PM
The whole Walmart Thanksgiving thing is actually a cool moment to teach people about inflation. The 2024 version has both more and higher quality items than the 2025 version, it's not a fixed basket of goods! You need to adjust for the substitution effects to accurate compare prices!
I did one (1) car thing this weekend and watched one half of a football game which is probably if anything too much masculinity
November 2, 2025 at 8:58 PM
I did one (1) car thing this weekend and watched one half of a football game which is probably if anything too much masculinity
Taking some time to reengage in one of my favorite hobbies (correcting people who refer to ROTH IRAs as if it was an acronym and not a dead senator's name on personal finance subreddits)
November 1, 2025 at 10:55 PM
Taking some time to reengage in one of my favorite hobbies (correcting people who refer to ROTH IRAs as if it was an acronym and not a dead senator's name on personal finance subreddits)
A lot of current discourse is basically looking at this graph and concluding that the solid red line is correct and also way too low.
October 31, 2025 at 3:29 PM
A lot of current discourse is basically looking at this graph and concluding that the solid red line is correct and also way too low.
Look, you can have opinions about the current state of electronic music or whatever, but the drops at 1:12 and 4:15 do have a pleasant brain vibrating quality www.youtube.com/watch?v=5yIi...
HARDSTYLE 2
YouTube video by Fred again.. - Topic
www.youtube.com
October 31, 2025 at 3:11 PM
Look, you can have opinions about the current state of electronic music or whatever, but the drops at 1:12 and 4:15 do have a pleasant brain vibrating quality www.youtube.com/watch?v=5yIi...
So basically all quantitative political debates are pre-Lucas critique Keynesians arguing about the slope of a static Phillips curve, right?
October 31, 2025 at 1:48 AM
So basically all quantitative political debates are pre-Lucas critique Keynesians arguing about the slope of a static Phillips curve, right?
The circle of life is: you hear about the full size bar house when your a kid and it's like El Dorado for kids, just the stuff of legend.
But then when you are an adult with your nice suburban house in a walkable suburb you realize *you* have to be the one to keep the legend alive
But then when you are an adult with your nice suburban house in a walkable suburb you realize *you* have to be the one to keep the legend alive
we don’t get a ton of kids on my street but the kids who do come this halloween are getting the good shit
October 28, 2025 at 9:53 PM
The circle of life is: you hear about the full size bar house when your a kid and it's like El Dorado for kids, just the stuff of legend.
But then when you are an adult with your nice suburban house in a walkable suburb you realize *you* have to be the one to keep the legend alive
But then when you are an adult with your nice suburban house in a walkable suburb you realize *you* have to be the one to keep the legend alive
So the failson of one of the early adopters of the trans panic did some shitty spreadsheet analysis to back fill his mom's politics, which is a bit refreshing, usually they do it to impress daddy
October 28, 2025 at 12:48 AM
So the failson of one of the early adopters of the trans panic did some shitty spreadsheet analysis to back fill his mom's politics, which is a bit refreshing, usually they do it to impress daddy
The implication a lot of people apparently take from the Burkhauser-Meyer research agenda on poverty is that the poverty rate post-transfers is too low and needs to dramatically increase.
There's a word for that, rhymes with type of laugh
There's a word for that, rhymes with type of laugh
May I present a former clerk to Justice Gorsuch.
October 27, 2025 at 12:28 AM
The implication a lot of people apparently take from the Burkhauser-Meyer research agenda on poverty is that the poverty rate post-transfers is too low and needs to dramatically increase.
There's a word for that, rhymes with type of laugh
There's a word for that, rhymes with type of laugh
I posit that "Bullshit Jobs" is the most damage text of the 21st century if only because it provides the pseudo intellectual scaffolding for the incurious contempt smart computer boys hold for their fellow man
the lies and disdain for labor are bad enough, but the way the culture treats these unremarkable men like they're sociologists is salt in the wound
Sam Altman Says If Jobs Gets Wiped Out, Maybe They Weren’t Even “Real Work” to Start With
So that's where we're at.
www.yahoo.com
October 25, 2025 at 2:27 PM
I posit that "Bullshit Jobs" is the most damage text of the 21st century if only because it provides the pseudo intellectual scaffolding for the incurious contempt smart computer boys hold for their fellow man
Its bad, actually, that most of the economy is based on scams or scam-adjacent things (gambling, crypto, most of the financial sector, in practice basically all AI)
October 23, 2025 at 3:27 PM
Its bad, actually, that most of the economy is based on scams or scam-adjacent things (gambling, crypto, most of the financial sector, in practice basically all AI)
My other one is that if you find yourself in a construction zone and you try to block traffic to prevent people from zipper merging (because other people merged over too soon) out of some misplaced sense of fairness you should have your driver's license revoked
Do you have any extremely niche, but serious, ethical stances?
October 16, 2025 at 10:37 PM
My other one is that if you find yourself in a construction zone and you try to block traffic to prevent people from zipper merging (because other people merged over too soon) out of some misplaced sense of fairness you should have your driver's license revoked
If you are at a grocery store 1) that has a place for a bagger to bag groceries 2) there isn't a bagger there right now and 3) you are shopping with someone else then if neither of you goes over and starts bagging groceries you should go straight to jail
Do you have any extremely niche, but serious, ethical stances?
October 16, 2025 at 10:34 PM
If you are at a grocery store 1) that has a place for a bagger to bag groceries 2) there isn't a bagger there right now and 3) you are shopping with someone else then if neither of you goes over and starts bagging groceries you should go straight to jail