John Voorheis
@johnvoorheis.bsky.social
6.5K followers 920 following 290 posts
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)
Posts Media Videos Starter Packs
johnvoorheis.bsky.social
Facts care about *some people's* feelings
johnvoorheis.bsky.social
Introvert married to an extrovert
johnvoorheis.bsky.social
Guess I better get a lions flag to fit in in the neighborhood
johnvoorheis.bsky.social
The between sets music playlist is all shit like Take Me Out, and it is killing with the crowd, many of whom were infants or nonexistent when said song came out
johnvoorheis.bsky.social
We ain't got no place to go, etc
johnvoorheis.bsky.social
Extremely high marginal income and wealth tax rates are not just a valuable public health intervention for a vulnerable community (rich people gone crazy with wealth) but also have important spillover effects for another population (young men who will otherwise bankrupt their families on gambling)
johnvoorheis.bsky.social
At a top 1% share of say 10% (of a gini of say .25), a young man at median income had dignity. Double that, and the only way to have a "good life" feels like just being lucky
johnvoorheis.bsky.social
Not an original thought, but the twin scourges of sports betting and crypto/options trading (honestly the same thing at root) are downstream of a policy/social choice to allow inequality to increase dramatically and stay high.
johnvoorheis.bsky.social
I think it is harder to know ex ante which specific tasks are "no brainers" and which are going to eat up efficiency gains in not having to write code from scratch with extensive review/debug/reprompt cycles than would be needed to actually make this true
johnvoorheis.bsky.social
Given the preponderance of evidence re: PM2.5 related mortality, taking literally any steps to continue burning coal when another, lower particulate matter producing option is available actually is something like murder.
johnvoorheis.bsky.social
Also I haven't had coffee yet don't listen to me
johnvoorheis.bsky.social
I'm just saying the distribution of productivity gains in final income determines whether this is a nightmare dystopia or not, and the fact that "and we'll have to pay our workers more if they're so much more productive" never seems to show up in these is telling
johnvoorheis.bsky.social
"we anticipate a productivity boom and we intend on capturing all of it"
johnvoorheis.bsky.social
The right way to read these is as a statement of intent, that AI is a magic money printing macguffin that lets CEOs increase revenue and limit payroll (aka good old fashioned Marxist exploitation)
johnvoorheis.bsky.social
About the only upside to having a shitty commute foisted on me is that I can really lean into middle aged dudeness, audiobooks about the ancient world-wide
johnvoorheis.bsky.social
Some of that depends on whether you think of nomadic pastoralism as a sort of primitiva communism though, right?
johnvoorheis.bsky.social
5) mistaking lifecycle effects for cross-cohort effects is something that a lot of people do, but that doesn't mean you should jump off the bridge too, or whatever the aphorism is
johnvoorheis.bsky.social
3) So over-indexing on household-level measures (like SCF or HVS based stats) continues to be misleading and 4) At least for homeownership (in the CPS-ASEC), improvements stopped in 2022, and 35-45 year olds have slightly lower homeownership rates in 2024 vs. 2022
johnvoorheis.bsky.social
There's a kernel of truth here that's relevant -- through about 2023, the fortunes of the 35-45 year old cohort did improve relative to the mid-2010s -- but it remains the case that for this group, 1) homeownership is *way* lower than it was 40 years ago and 2) householder status is less common
doughenwood.bsky.social
The received standard tale of Millennials' economic woe is obsolete.

www.bloomberg.com/news/article...
The statistics for American millennials have changed — rapidly. Some 55% of us now own homes. On average, millennials are now nearly a third richer than baby boomers were at a similar point in their lives. The Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis found that millennials own $1.35 for every $1 boomers did at the same age. Millennial households’ average net worth was around $90,000 in 2016, but it’s now estimated to be about four times that size, having ballooned at “an unusually fast pace,” according to the Fed. Fidelity recently reported that the average 401(k) balance for millennials is now $74,800. Even factoring in mortgage debt, millennial housing wealth grew by $2.5 trillion between 2020 and 2024.
johnvoorheis.bsky.social
Your wife/girlfriend/husband/boyfriend/partner/random person you know probably wants a pumpkin donut and a dirty chai latte and if you get them one they will like you more
johnvoorheis.bsky.social
A big problem with basically everything is that the median person is a confident dumbass
charlotteeffect.bsky.social
I have so much happening this morning!!
1. On the Searchlight website, our new housing poll. It is extremely a mixed bag. Plus toplines and xtabs for your enjoyment
www.searchlightinstitute.org/research/wha...
johnvoorheis.bsky.social
Vance is tiebreaker though, so would be same result either way
johnvoorheis.bsky.social
Verbal debate, like upper body strength for men, is largely a vestige of previous eras, so it's a sort of historical playacting. Some guys like to reenact civil war battles, some guys like to debate like a pre-literate Sumerian, everyone needs a hobby
johnvoorheis.bsky.social
I feel like this is not adjusting for population properly, so it would be better to choose only the best single item/dish from each. My controversial list

A = French fries
B = cacio e pepe (going to say rome is B)
C = pizza
D =falafel
E = shiro on injera
F = maafe
G = burritos
brilliantmaps.bsky.social
For the rest of your life, you can only eat food from one of these regions. Which do you choose?

For more maps: brilliantmaps.beehiiv.com/s...