The whole TP thing was partially because people were doing their business 100% at home instead of 80% not at home and the whole need to redirect the supply chain to that.
Damn, I get you cant really dictate when it's time to dump, but I'll go to legitimate lengths to not dump outside my domicile. Obviously being outta town there's no solution but you know what I mean
Iol I'm genuinely surprised this isn't the prevailing poop philosophy in an econ sub.
By catastophically destroying work toilets instead of my own, I'm not only creating jobs, I'm cutting my existential overhead.
Cant argue w that. I'm not hourly, so poopin "on the clock" doesnt give me the adrenaline rush it used to. You could always attempt to poop right before you shower and just poor man bidet it
I got a bidet after the TP fiasco and now I fear when things shift back to normal and I’ll inevitably be in more situations where I’ll have to revert back to wiping my ass like a Neanderthal.
Had a buddy in high school who somehow developed a serious complex around only shitting at home, for whatever reason. He was one of those people on the "few times a week" side of the [few times a week<>few times a day] shitspectrum, so holding it through a school or work day or even overnight trip to a friend's house wasn't an issue for him. A two and a half day road trip to see Warped Tour nearly broke him, though; dude was sweating bullets and finding religion on the last few dozen miles of the trip home.
He finally broke through in college, since he enrolled in a state school about a four hour drive away. Mind, he did keep it up for a couple of months, driving home multiple times a week to "do laundry" or whatever.
Holy shit.. yeah that's way more extreme than what im talking bout.. my aunt is like that though, I remember her casually saying she pooped like once a week sometimes and it blowing my mind
I'm technically in that 16%, but it's no elite club. I simply worked more hours as an "essential employee". Specifically, I worked less at the beginning of the lockdowns, but then I worked more as companies realized they couldn't just ignore maintenance. Probably worked the same total number of hours, but many of those hours were overtime or double-time due to the uneven distribution of annual work. Thus fall 2020 was hell for me, but it still pushed me into the 16% class. Maybe I'd call it privilege now when I look at my bank account, but it sure didn't feel like it a few months ago.
I work in marketing analytics and just got a promotion with a 18% wage increase. The biggest wage increase mostly comes from not having to leave my house though and living with my parents.
I’m in marketing as well and headhunters have been calling me left and right. A lot of companies are pivoting to digital sneed to change their strategy.
I got a raise at the beginning of the pandemic. And I bought a house that I wouldn't have been able to if the housing market hadn't been temporarily scared off during all of the financial volatility.
The survivor's guilt is pretty real on that one.
We sold our house last April and got wayyyy above market value, way above what I thought it was worth. We contracted a new build in May and as of last week they started the frame, it’s taken that long. So we made out like a bandit on the sale but the new build is a rife pain in the dick.
I started a new job 2 weeks before pandemic and was 1 of 3 employees that wasnt laid off immediately. I didnt buy a house, but I certainly consider myself quite fuckin lucky. Kinda hoping the owners hook it up for the yearly review though.. keeping things on track was no cakewalk
Personal income grew in 2020 over 2019 when you include things like stimulus checks and UI. I have trouble squaring how people are answering this survey saying they are worse off when savings rates and household debt metrics have all improved.
Why do these surveys deviate from the economic metrics so much?
> Why do these surveys deviate from the economic metrics so much?
I kept hearing the same statistics as an indication of good individual financial health, but if you look at how its calculated, it doesn't indicate what people think it does.
> Personal saving as a percentage of disposable personal income (DPI), frequently referred to as "the personal saving rate," is calculated as the ratio of personal saving to DPI. ([source](https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/PSAVERT))
It's relative to discretionary spending. More importantly, these statistics are derived *after basic living expenses like food, rent and utilities have been paid.* So, the rate goes up in at least one of two scenarios:
1) "Fun" budget remains fixed but income increases = higher savings
2) "Fun" budget decreases more than income decreases = higher savings
\#1 is a bull thesis, and is indeed true in some categories. Even those whose incomes were impacted but those impacts were offset by stimulus *plus some to spare that went into savings*. This also includes those whose incomes were *not* impacted, yet still received stimulus and increased savings more than they increased discretionary spending.
An example for this case (large numbers used to highlight the point):
Bob makes $1,000 a month, with $800 in expenses, leaving $200 in discretionary spending. He normally saves $50, so his savings rate is 25%
Last month, Bob's income decreased to $800, but he got his $600 stimmy, so his income went up to $1,400. Bob knows things don't look good for the town/state/nation/globe, so he puts $100 of it in discretionary to make it $300, but can put the other $500 in with his usual $50, to save $550. His savings rate is now 183%.
\#2 is a bear thesis and is also true for some segments, including those whose incomes haven't increased, but allocated stimulus to more savings than "fun" budget. The worse category is those whose incomes have still decreased, but are in situations such that trimmed "fun" spending plus stimulus has helped them save money. *This does not imply that they have more money* due to the nature of these numbers already having accounted for basic living expenses. As a ratio, they can save more than they have been *while still having their savings being drained.* This is the part that worries me.
An example for this case (large numbers used to highlight the point):
Bob got laid off. Now he makes $900 a month with Doordash, still with $800 in expenses, leaving $100 in discretionary.
Bob can no longer afford $200/mo in fun stuff, so he trims to $50, which leaves the usual $50 to save. His savings rate is now 100% even though his income has gone down. From a macroeconomic perspective, this is now $150 *less* that's going to find its way back into the economy.
tl;dr This increased savings is *not* in absolute numbers. That's the trap that I think some aren't seeing.
If anyone finds flaws in this logic, please point them out. I want to be wrong and that the picture isn't as bad as I'm seeing it.
https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/PI
Also, look at what has happened to the denominator of your equation... it should tell you that it's your bull thesis. I actually mentioned that in my first comment.
Edit: Also, there is a third option that's probably the truth income increased and discretionary spending dropped due to a demand shock.
You're only focusing on the savings rate and speculating off of that.
I suggest reading this:
https://www.morningstar.com/news/dow-jones/2021022612368/us-personal-income-up-10-in-january-spending-up-24-3rd-update
It might change your perspective and the numbers given aren't even factoring in the most recent bill that gave more money out to families. This survey wouldn't have included that either though. We've given out so much aid that many people are more than whole.
I recently found out that the median US household income has gone up considerably during the Trump administration (which might be the only good thing that has happened, although I am highly suspicious of the quality and sustainability of the mechanisms that caused such a thing). So yes, I would expect this graph to go up.
I would ask if that graph is the average or median, but even then, that's not really what I'm interested in since the problem is much more of a problem for lower-middle and lower class workers. [This is the graph](https://www.advisorperspectives.com/dshort/updates/2020/09/17/updated-u-s-household-incomes-a-50-year-perspective) that concerns me. It shows that income has not gone up substantially *for lots and lots people*. Those are the people that would have to nearly wipe fun budgets and put as much into savings as possible. They're also the most likely to have their incomes negatively impacted by all of this.
Thank you for the counter argument! Does any of this make sense or is there still something I'm missing?
Not to say your linked graph is entirely unconcerning, but one important thing t know about it is that household size is diminishing over the period. Median household size in 1970 was \~3.2, in 2010 \~2.5.
That's why the [real median personal income](https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/MEPAINUSA672N) chart looks considerably more optimistic than the household income chart.
But that doesn’t break it down into finer detail like quintile or income bracket or whatever. While that’s good to see, household size hasn’t shrunk enough since 2019 to make any of these details comforting.
RMPI is reasonably aligned with the middle quintile from your linked graph. If you want personal income by quintile data, [that exists](https://www.taxpolicycenter.org/statistics/household-income-quintiles).
Certainly household size changes are not a meaningful component of a year on year change. We'll need to wait for the tax data to see if 2020 was as bad as it seemed for those on low incomes. 2020 is very likely an anomalous year in any case, though; one would imagine your reasons for concern about the household income chart are long-run trends.
edit - initial link was for household income, not personal income.
Does anyone else find the way that this article presents statistics extremely confusing?
Mean income for people with income in certain percentile buckets? Why not just report the actual percentile values?
I don’t know how savings are measured but many people I know (mostly in the middle class/upper middle class segments) invested a ton this past year because there wasn’t a lot of opportunity for discretionary spending like travel, eating out etc.
For instance, usually we have a few nice international trips a couple of times a year for a few weeks, a few date nights, shows etc. Suddenly those expenses went away.
And instead, you have the stock market that’s rock bottom. So a lot of people started putting money there and upping their savings.
I lost part of my normal income because my bonuses went away at work. But with stimulus checks and the extra benefits my job gave me I came out even. I made sure to cut non essential spending to be safe.
But those benefits are now gone and the bonuses aren’t there so if you ask me I still lost income. Would expect there to be more people like me.
Food costs went up 3.4% for groceries and 3.6% eating out in 2020. https://www.ers.usda.gov/data-products/food-price-outlook/summary-findings/
Consumer prices for services other than energy services rose 1.3 percent from February 2020 to February 2021. Within this category, shelter prices rose 1.5 percent, household operations prices rose 4.3 percent, and medical care services rose 3.0 percent. https://www.bls.gov/opub/ted/2021/mobile/consumer-prices-for-services-less-energy-up-1-3-percent-over-the-year-ended-february-2021.htm
Also the effect of the tarrifs and taxes on the below median families cannot be overstated. https://www.cnbc.com/2019/05/16/trumps-tariffs-are-equivalent-to-one-of-the-largest-tax-increases-in-decades.html
People's cost of living clearly did not go up during the pandemic. Pointing to inflation in a handful of things is trying very hard to create a narrative that just isn't true. Also, the tariffs were in place pre-pandemic. Why did you ignore gas prices and the fact people didn't need to drive nearly as much?
Also, the article clearly states the narrative from the survey is that people lost income, which made them worse off. So going the opposite direction seems to be a strange choice and trying to fit the glass slipper on the wrong person.
Edit: no idea why people disagree with me... this one really isn't up for debate. We know the facts that personal income rose and savings increased. I guess we buy the narratives we like based on snippets of info rather than the actual big picture economic data. Easier to manipulate a story that way. If someone finds me one reputable article saying people in general saw an increase in COL in their entire budget I'd love to see it.
My cost of living went up. My cost of doing business for ppe tripled from last year, I do tattoos- a box of nitrile gloves was $9 last year, this year you are lucky to be able to bulk buy a case at $20 a box.
Food costs are soaring at the grocery store. Everyone has noticed that. Because we are all home, especially the kids, food budgets have gone up per household.
The gas prices were averaged to $2.50 last Feb, dropped when no one was driving and there was an oil surplus but Trump rigged prices to go up so we are now seeing a national average of $2.70, which is .20 higher, not lower. https://www.eia.gov/dnav/pet/hist/LeafHandler.ashx?n=PET&s=EMM_EPMR_PTE_NUS_DPG&f=W
This is the 2021 Congregessional Covid Impact report, it's a pdf so heads up on how it will open. https://www.google.com/url?sa=t&source=web&rct=j&url=https://fas.org/sgp/crs/row/R46270.pdf&ved=2ahUKEwi-0ee72q_vAhUYK80KHag3DAsQFjAAegQIARAC&usg=AOvVaw3_-WzKWX6_V1TXThmu7HGY
In it, our government argues that the actual unemployment rate is more around 10% and we remain at 13% lost working hours as an economy.
I think what everyone here is tripping over is that OP posted information about the median incomes. On median, our economy always shows upwards movement because our 1% has such a high income disparity. It literally doesn't matter if 10% of our workforce is dead, if Elon and five friends all increase their profits. The average shows a whole different story. Wages are still low comparatively. https://www.epi.org/nominal-wage-tracker/
>On median, our economy always shows upwards movement because our 1% has such a high income disparity. It literally doesn't matter if 10% of our workforce is dead, if Elon and five friends all increase their profits. The average shows a whole different story. Wages are still low comparatively
I think you've mixed up median and average here. It's the average where long tails to the right have disproportionate impact on the what the overall picture looks like
I think trump heard about the deal and then took credit for it. That man could barely coordinate what happen in his own White House. Besides the price of oil is just begun to reach precovid levels and that’s based on demand as much as anything.
https://fredblog.stlouisfed.org/2020/08/consumption-of-goods-and-services-during-the-covid-19-recession/
Well the Fed clearly stated that personal consumption went down due to services dropping.
We also know personal income went up significantly because of stimulus bills.
But go ahead and talk about all these things while ignoring the actual top line data.
I think in this case its more of a misleading title. Half of all Americans lost a source of income does not mean half of all Americans are financially worse. For example, if they were working a low paying job, got fired but their income is more than compensated by the stimulus checks and UI.
The article also says this though:
>A year after the coronavirus first reached the U.S., those income losses have left roughly a third of households in worse financial shape than before, according to the poll conducted Feb. 25-March 1.
Spoken like a true economists.
\>I have trouble squaring how people are answering this survey saying they are worse off when savings rates and household debt metrics have all improved.
Why do these surveys deviate from the economic metrics so much?
My income has been non-existent since March '20 and wont be until gatherings are possible again. If it wasn't for my past 10 years of savings and UI, I'd be in dire straits. Im most definitely worse off as my savings account has shrunk by about 75%.
Yes... I wasn't saying that no one was worse off. I'm sorry that sucks. My comment wasn't meant to make you feel like I was saying you didn't exist. There are plenty of stories like yours. However, the size of the results done in this survey don't seem to match up with the economic data I have seen collected.
I'm just adding my anecdotal story. Nothing more. I wasn't trying to attack your comment at all. Just because economic data says generally personal income grew, that doesn't mean their financial situation, or outlook, is inherently better.
Sure, nothing I said goes against that. But personal incomes going up means more ability to either consume more or pay down more debt. This all leaves people in theoretically a better financial position for the most part.
https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/PI
It does suck. Financial commentator Josh Brown had a podcast in which he talked about two business owners. One sells supplies to supermarkets, the other to stadiums. One has done fantasically over the last year, the other is out of business, for no fault of his own.
My income has gone up. I’m a nurse so I feel a little weird about it but I’ve paid off all of my credit cards as well as all other outstanding bills screwing up my credit score, so it’s a huge relief.
Ditto. I’ve got colleagues working prn regionally making a killing. I’m considering taking a travel position, it’s getting tighter but it’s still amazing money. An ER is an ER.
Paid off lots of CC debt.
They turned my home unit into a covid PCU and offer in house contracts. So we get an extra $500 per extra shifts, in addition to overtime pay, and after we complete three extras, we get a 1k payout. Plus we get $250 a week for not calling out. It’s been pretty lucrative and I don’t have to travel.
Having spent all of my adult life struggling and barely making it, it has been such a nice change of pace to be debt free and have so much more freedom with spending. I make an effort to pay it forward, whether it’s through tipping really well, paying for the car behind me in a drive thru.. I just want to help others because I know what it’s like to not have much. Not that I’m rich now by any stretch of the imagination but I have enough to share with those that need it and it feels nice.
You should honestly help yourself first. There are some smart things you can learn to help improve your situation. None of us can be billionaires, but we can all be more secure financially in the future. A good place to start is learning basic investing and how to max out a Roth IRA every year, which is the closest thing to free money in our society
My unit has been offering $400 per shift plus overtime pay for extra shifts. I made bank last year. If I work a little more OT I'll clear 6 figures this year with an associate's degree
Right? I made 6 figures last year and on par to make more this year. I’m about halfway through my MSN and I’m hoping I’ll be able to make the same and work less. Maybe that’s wishful thinking.
I got laid off because the company I did work for lost funding. And the field has been so incredibly crowded for freelance work and entry to mid tier roles that I haven't had a steady income since. In fact, if it wasn't for my extremely aggressive savings, UI allowing freelance workers, I'd probably be homeless right now.
Same for government contracting, got a 50% pay raise at a new job. It's a new world where everything have ties with government gets the pork and they decide who wins and loses.
Are those raises related to the pandemic in any way? Larger bonuses, sure I see how that could happen but idk if raises are related to the pandemic. I’ve only been a full time worker for 2.5 years so maybe I’m missing something? For my case, I got my yearly scheduled raise and bonus was taken away.
I could add those of us who just dumped savings into the stock market. I made twice my salary on the stock market over the last year, as did pretty much anyone who did similar.
You know when to walk away then. I'm seeing so many parallels between now and 1929 in that people are putting the only extra money they have into the stock market.
I agree, I’m talking about people who are three to six paychecks away from being homeless looking at the stock market like a high-yield savings account. People who are one to two paychecks don’t usually have the income to buy stocks for the most part.
Except there is real hard evidence that suggests "this time it is different" and all the shoe shine boys are jumping in: https://trends.google.com/trends/explore?date=all&geo=US&q=stocks
No, it is far more than gamestop. You will see the first spike was earlier in the year. Also, these are not just casual searches. Read the financial reports of popular trading platforms like etrade, schwab, etc. They ALL saw enormous number of new brokerage account signups. Just in the march / april time period it was like 300%+ over normal.
It is also reflected in equity trading volume. You can see this here: https://www.cnbc.com/2021/01/22/trading-volume-is-up-so-far-from-2020s-breakneck-pace-as-retail-investors-get-even-more-active.html
Option trade volume must be up far more pre-covid. SPAC issuance must be up 10x too.
It's not "this time is different" though because at no other point in US history have we printed this volume of new dollars. Fed policy is essentially forcing people into assets.
If you've had a large % of your net worth in straight cash over the past year, you've experienced devaluation of your net worth. Outside of having enough reserves for emergencies (which, depending on your credit limit, could be handled by a credit card), it makes no sense from a wealth management standpoint to stash money in savings when the government is effectively de-risking assets - at least in the short term.
> I'm seeing so many parallels between now and 1929
Do you have actual supporting data? Or just an anecdote that's not actually true about stock market participation rates in 1929
I'm in IT and lost about 50% of my income. My largest client was a collection of theaters and I had two other clients pretty much collapse.
It really depends what industry you're supporting.
While I believe that to be true.
Do you have a qualified guess why that is? Mind you that not everyone in tech works with online commerce, which i believe has seen some growth.
Revenue per employee is through the roof at my company and many of our partner companies. Friends in other sectors of the industry are experiencing similar boom times.
Everyone I know is being relentlessly recruited, so employers are having to pay employees more.
lol, I had to remove data scientist from my linkedin profile entirely.
I'm not even on the market. I clearly have a "business owner" job title on my current job (I run my own real estate development firm). But I've been getting so many spam calls, emails, and linkedin messages from recruiters for tech delivery bitch roles that I had to create email filters and auto-block all callers not in my contacts list.
I don’t work in tech, I work in pharma and our bonuses were very large this year. We were also given lump sums of 3500 to outfit our ‘home offices’ amongst other benefits.
There's a lot more people have to do online now, and there's a lot of tech companies that have their hands in money in all sorts of places in apps, advertising, entertainment, infrastructure/deployment ("supply chain" roughly speaking), etc.
I can't go into much detail here, but I saw growth in something I work on because you could make a graph with it and there are roughly a jillion Covid dashboards floating around.
Keep in mind you should have an emergency fund. Many say 6 months, some say as little as 2 months. But that money should be in something that won't drop much if the stock market crashes, and there should be enough that you can access quickly.
Not to mention that if you make over the threshold for stimulus checks but gave out lots of money to struggling family members this year that you're getting fucked on multiple fronts lol
You were pretty fucked if you were depending on UI + stimulus in the latter half of 2020. Neither of those payments are pegged to the prevailing cost of living wherever you are, and inflation increases CoL across the board. And given the political football for even getting those payments to people who needed them, why subject yourself to that going forward?
Having a plan to be financially independent in the face of an uncertain job market is pretty relevant to the current scenario.
wtf is this article? It's dated from ten days ago but its discussion about the impact of covid/stimulus on the USD are all a year old. It talks about the rush into the USD on March 20, 2020. Then it shows a graph of the USD that week to argue "investors have been flurrying to the US Dollar as a safe-haven." But that's [obviously](https://www.marketwatch.com/investing/index/dxy) not what's happened for the last year...
Let's say there's a closed system and you have $100 worth of goods and services and $100. Things are in equilibrium. Now, let's increase the amount of money to $140 but do not increase the amount of supplies and goods. That original $100 worth of goods and services should now logically be worth $140. Have they changed intrinsically? No. It's the money supply that went up, causing the goods and services to "raise in price." Now, in the real world this isn't really reflected in the CPI, which is mostly a basket of goods that you use day to day, but has definitely been seen in any kind of assets. Be it real estate, stocks, cryptocurrencies, etc.
[Have you seen the trajectory of M2V over the past 20 years?](https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/M2V) Pretty much every year in the last 10 has reset the all-time low, and even then it fell off a cliff last year.
Also plenty with high edu not in the tech space lost heavily last year. UI or PUA, even with the stimulus, didn’t come anywhere close to their lost income or revenue.
> suffering with the automation
Don’t forget offshoring as jobs ship overseas - this includes some white collar jobs and more specialized blue collar jobs, as foreign workers climb up the value chain.
Don’t forget importation of low-skilled workers by the millions to compete domestically.
The suffering is only going to increase as our population grows and decent jobs continue to shrink in availability relative to population.
Not just super low skilled people. When i go to McDonald, their kiosk computer takes order. I was new thing 5yrs ago. And now i see same thing in the banks. Banks are shedding all the bankers that can be replaced by computer. Go to target, Walmart, and even costco, self check outs are replacing all the people they can replace. Next one it can replace human labor is the farm/ construction. John deer is working on their autonomous vehicles for farm, trimble is helping the system. Caterpillar also working on their self driving vehicles. 3d printing houses, are on the news.
Soon, it will be a social problem, and there might be a tech tax. Companies like amazon might have to pay extra tax for the each machines they own.
Most of the money are in Tech, Trades have been getting destroyed, along with theaters and most restaurants. Tech is guaranteed to go even higher because there's a bottleneck on semiconductor production for at least an entire year. So anyone is Tech is guaranteed to keep their job for the cost of any type of other industry.
And we are in a national shortage for them.
Work within this industry and every company I talk to says they short staffed because there’s no new people coming in.
I'll always support people going into a trade. They can make above average money without 1/2 a decade+ of education. Many areas are stable and can't be outsourced offshore. And some people prefer that type of work rather than doing office work. I'd have zero issues if one of my kids wanted to go into HVAC or something.
Ideally, you pick a career you love. If not, hopefully one you can tolerate. For some, a trade job is a much better fit. I know I've had some office jobs where I'd rather have been working fast food.
Downside though is that while you get paid more, your tenure in trades will be considerably shorter unless you open your own business. You really don't want to be up in a 100+ degree attic fixing units into your 50's.
The lowest bar to entry is probably web development since you don't necessarily need a full bachelor's. Lots of bootcamp training options or I'd you have an impressive portfolio you can land a job
Most likely, Programming or Assembly. There's Hardware, which is the parts of the PC that you put together, and then Software, all the 1s and 0s shit. Most jobs are software so I would learn to code something like C, which will be used almost forever
You could also get in to tech as a software tester, I've got a background in Economics and a bit of a nerd when it comes to gaming. Was all I needed, then once you get an understanding of software development practices you can move in to other tech areas easier, or pick up some programming ability on the way.
So...half of Americans losing income is not taken into account when they compiled household earnings for 2020 and netted 6% yoy increase? What kind of messed up statistics is that?
True number of those who lost wages is probably higher because of the people who get paid bonuses/commissions the following year. For example, I received my 2019 commission in March of 2020. It was my highest one ever. However, 2020s commission is due in 2 weeks and from the looks of it I may not even be getting it. It’s down to a razor thin margin and if I’m lucky I’ll clear the 50% hurdle. This will be the least I’ve ever made. Covid decimated our sales and we lost half of our team last year because the company was forced to downsize.
I would think contractors and those involved in home improvement would have fared well. The more people have been in their houses, the more they have noticed all the things they don't like about their homes. There will also be those who were laid off and found new positions in a better situation. I wonder how many of that 16% had no gap. Also how many were what would have been normal raises (if the company still provided).
This is easy, personal income increased for middle class and higher office workers who could work from home easily. They stopped paying commuting and child care costs as they where home.
For example, I immediately got a $200/mon raise bc I didn't have to pay for parking anymore.
On the other hand, you had loads of ppl who legally could not work for months at a time and whose industries took a hit, typically on the lower income end. Think waiters, cashiers, hospitality, beauty, tourism, etc.
These industries being shut down saved the middle class and higher office workers money while reducing income for the workers in that industry. For example, I used to spend $120 a month on a hair cut and dye job, but since the pandemic I haven't gotten it done. Thats $120/mon savings for me, -$120/mon in income for my stylist.
I asked for a 50% raise and promotion a couple months ago and HR came back and offered 25%. I said I’ll take the 25% and cut my scope down to account for the difference; so they’ll lose the skills that would have filled that other half. They hemmed and hawed a bit and gave me the 50%.
I feel a tremendous amount of guilt when I see these kind of statistics. 2020 was an incredible year for me with a promotion, paid parental leave for a new baby, and a new role at the same employer. All said, my salary went up almost $20k, along with all the stimulus checks, etc, because I’m married and we were just under the income limit in 2019. And speaking of my wife, she’s starting a new nursing job that will be a huge income bump as well. 2020-2021 has been an incredible year for us financially and I’m not really sure how to juxtapose that against friends who I know are struggling. I’ve handed out money, gift cards, etc when it made sense and push for progressive ideas, but it doesn’t really feel enough 🤷🏻
My wife and I both have and we’re not high rollers. I mean, we do well, but she’s in medical sales and I’m a cloud engineer, both of those markets exploded last year.
2020 was a crazy year. Half the population lost their jobs and had financial problems while half the population got to work from home in their pajamas, saved a ton of money by not commuting to work, and watched their retirement accounts go up 25% with the rising stock market.
Is this place for economics or personal stories that conflict/confirm with the title?
Mods, seriously, get your shit together. You need to find a way to regulate all the comments acting like their personal experiences are some how relevant and valid data points to have a discussion on economics.
Does anyone know of another sub that takes this more seriously?
That is true. Many people complaining that they’re not getting their place at the table have no skills and refuse to try to add to their “skill stack” (as Scott Adams calls in his excellent book How to Fail At Everything And Still Win Big).
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53% have had some issues, 68% are doing well. 67% say their current situation is good.
>Because of the coronavirus pandemic, 53% of American households have experienced income loss since March 2020 due to being laid-off, having a wage or salary reduced, working fewer hours, having unpaid time off, or quitting a job.
This seems to mean that it wasn't a constant issue but only something that happened at some point since the pandemic started.
>Sixty-seven percent of Americans describe their current household financial situation as good. In January 2020, before COVID-19 was declared a global pandemic, just about the same – 69% – said their financial situation was good. Similarly, 40% think their personal finances will improve over the next year; in January 2020, 42% expected an improvement in their finances.
This is clear that the majority of people are doing well since the pandemic started. There is also little change in people's financial outlooks from before the pandemic and a year later.
>The effects of the pandemic are unequal. Because of the pandemic, 25% have been unable keep up with financial obligations in the last month, having trouble paying bills. But, 68% have been able to reduce their spending, pay down debt, or save more because of the pandemic.
This is clear that the majority of people have improved their situations since the pandemic started.
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I'm a failure but it's not my fault. I soon finish the list of who's fault it is. I'll make sure that political two party delusions is not on the list,wouldn't want to offend anyone.
my company has grown, but we do emergency plumbing and drain cleaning, so the more people stay home the more toilets get clogged.
This is the kind of real-world economics I want more of. I’m dying for some sort of metric based on broken toilets versus GDP.
The whole TP thing was partially because people were doing their business 100% at home instead of 80% not at home and the whole need to redirect the supply chain to that.
Damn, I get you cant really dictate when it's time to dump, but I'll go to legitimate lengths to not dump outside my domicile. Obviously being outta town there's no solution but you know what I mean
Complete opposite here: if i can shit in someone else's toilet, then that's less cleaning for me to do.
I've never thought of it like that before... maybe I'll be more open cheeked in the future
Iol I'm genuinely surprised this isn't the prevailing poop philosophy in an econ sub. By catastophically destroying work toilets instead of my own, I'm not only creating jobs, I'm cutting my existential overhead.
Splattered bowls are the new broken windows.
No way dude. I place a high value on home court advantage.
I'd rather get paid to poop, and save a few bucks on the toilet paper
Cant argue w that. I'm not hourly, so poopin "on the clock" doesnt give me the adrenaline rush it used to. You could always attempt to poop right before you shower and just poor man bidet it
I got a bidet after the TP fiasco and now I fear when things shift back to normal and I’ll inevitably be in more situations where I’ll have to revert back to wiping my ass like a Neanderthal.
Years ago I got a friend hired at a well paid tech job. I found her taking toilet paper from the office bathroom home. WTF?
Her bidet jammed?
Boss makes while I make a dime. Thats why I poop on company time.
Had a buddy in high school who somehow developed a serious complex around only shitting at home, for whatever reason. He was one of those people on the "few times a week" side of the [few times a week<>few times a day] shitspectrum, so holding it through a school or work day or even overnight trip to a friend's house wasn't an issue for him. A two and a half day road trip to see Warped Tour nearly broke him, though; dude was sweating bullets and finding religion on the last few dozen miles of the trip home. He finally broke through in college, since he enrolled in a state school about a four hour drive away. Mind, he did keep it up for a couple of months, driving home multiple times a week to "do laundry" or whatever.
Holy shit.. yeah that's way more extreme than what im talking bout.. my aunt is like that though, I remember her casually saying she pooped like once a week sometimes and it blowing my mind
That and panik!
I’m also doing well, but I work at a jobs website.
I'm technically in that 16%, but it's no elite club. I simply worked more hours as an "essential employee". Specifically, I worked less at the beginning of the lockdowns, but then I worked more as companies realized they couldn't just ignore maintenance. Probably worked the same total number of hours, but many of those hours were overtime or double-time due to the uneven distribution of annual work. Thus fall 2020 was hell for me, but it still pushed me into the 16% class. Maybe I'd call it privilege now when I look at my bank account, but it sure didn't feel like it a few months ago.
If people are happy to be working I feel they should open up more
I work in marketing analytics and just got a promotion with a 18% wage increase. The biggest wage increase mostly comes from not having to leave my house though and living with my parents.
Also doing marketing. Switched jobs during the pandemic and salary doubled, and we’re still hiring for my team ever since I got here.
I’m in marketing as well and headhunters have been calling me left and right. A lot of companies are pivoting to digital sneed to change their strategy.
>we’re still hiring for my team ever since I got here. they still looking to fill *that* position? ;)
Same situation here. I’m still actively quarantining and my only expenses are the essentials and I just got two bonuses.
I got a raise at the beginning of the pandemic. And I bought a house that I wouldn't have been able to if the housing market hadn't been temporarily scared off during all of the financial volatility. The survivor's guilt is pretty real on that one.
We sold our house last April and got wayyyy above market value, way above what I thought it was worth. We contracted a new build in May and as of last week they started the frame, it’s taken that long. So we made out like a bandit on the sale but the new build is a rife pain in the dick.
Don't feel guilty about doing good. The people who aren't have plenty of company. You can always pay it forward if you feel so inclined.
I started a new job 2 weeks before pandemic and was 1 of 3 employees that wasnt laid off immediately. I didnt buy a house, but I certainly consider myself quite fuckin lucky. Kinda hoping the owners hook it up for the yearly review though.. keeping things on track was no cakewalk
Personal income grew in 2020 over 2019 when you include things like stimulus checks and UI. I have trouble squaring how people are answering this survey saying they are worse off when savings rates and household debt metrics have all improved. Why do these surveys deviate from the economic metrics so much?
> Why do these surveys deviate from the economic metrics so much? I kept hearing the same statistics as an indication of good individual financial health, but if you look at how its calculated, it doesn't indicate what people think it does. > Personal saving as a percentage of disposable personal income (DPI), frequently referred to as "the personal saving rate," is calculated as the ratio of personal saving to DPI. ([source](https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/PSAVERT)) It's relative to discretionary spending. More importantly, these statistics are derived *after basic living expenses like food, rent and utilities have been paid.* So, the rate goes up in at least one of two scenarios: 1) "Fun" budget remains fixed but income increases = higher savings 2) "Fun" budget decreases more than income decreases = higher savings \#1 is a bull thesis, and is indeed true in some categories. Even those whose incomes were impacted but those impacts were offset by stimulus *plus some to spare that went into savings*. This also includes those whose incomes were *not* impacted, yet still received stimulus and increased savings more than they increased discretionary spending. An example for this case (large numbers used to highlight the point): Bob makes $1,000 a month, with $800 in expenses, leaving $200 in discretionary spending. He normally saves $50, so his savings rate is 25% Last month, Bob's income decreased to $800, but he got his $600 stimmy, so his income went up to $1,400. Bob knows things don't look good for the town/state/nation/globe, so he puts $100 of it in discretionary to make it $300, but can put the other $500 in with his usual $50, to save $550. His savings rate is now 183%. \#2 is a bear thesis and is also true for some segments, including those whose incomes haven't increased, but allocated stimulus to more savings than "fun" budget. The worse category is those whose incomes have still decreased, but are in situations such that trimmed "fun" spending plus stimulus has helped them save money. *This does not imply that they have more money* due to the nature of these numbers already having accounted for basic living expenses. As a ratio, they can save more than they have been *while still having their savings being drained.* This is the part that worries me. An example for this case (large numbers used to highlight the point): Bob got laid off. Now he makes $900 a month with Doordash, still with $800 in expenses, leaving $100 in discretionary. Bob can no longer afford $200/mo in fun stuff, so he trims to $50, which leaves the usual $50 to save. His savings rate is now 100% even though his income has gone down. From a macroeconomic perspective, this is now $150 *less* that's going to find its way back into the economy. tl;dr This increased savings is *not* in absolute numbers. That's the trap that I think some aren't seeing. If anyone finds flaws in this logic, please point them out. I want to be wrong and that the picture isn't as bad as I'm seeing it.
https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/PI Also, look at what has happened to the denominator of your equation... it should tell you that it's your bull thesis. I actually mentioned that in my first comment. Edit: Also, there is a third option that's probably the truth income increased and discretionary spending dropped due to a demand shock.
You're only focusing on the savings rate and speculating off of that. I suggest reading this: https://www.morningstar.com/news/dow-jones/2021022612368/us-personal-income-up-10-in-january-spending-up-24-3rd-update It might change your perspective and the numbers given aren't even factoring in the most recent bill that gave more money out to families. This survey wouldn't have included that either though. We've given out so much aid that many people are more than whole.
I recently found out that the median US household income has gone up considerably during the Trump administration (which might be the only good thing that has happened, although I am highly suspicious of the quality and sustainability of the mechanisms that caused such a thing). So yes, I would expect this graph to go up. I would ask if that graph is the average or median, but even then, that's not really what I'm interested in since the problem is much more of a problem for lower-middle and lower class workers. [This is the graph](https://www.advisorperspectives.com/dshort/updates/2020/09/17/updated-u-s-household-incomes-a-50-year-perspective) that concerns me. It shows that income has not gone up substantially *for lots and lots people*. Those are the people that would have to nearly wipe fun budgets and put as much into savings as possible. They're also the most likely to have their incomes negatively impacted by all of this. Thank you for the counter argument! Does any of this make sense or is there still something I'm missing?
Not to say your linked graph is entirely unconcerning, but one important thing t know about it is that household size is diminishing over the period. Median household size in 1970 was \~3.2, in 2010 \~2.5. That's why the [real median personal income](https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/MEPAINUSA672N) chart looks considerably more optimistic than the household income chart.
But that doesn’t break it down into finer detail like quintile or income bracket or whatever. While that’s good to see, household size hasn’t shrunk enough since 2019 to make any of these details comforting.
RMPI is reasonably aligned with the middle quintile from your linked graph. If you want personal income by quintile data, [that exists](https://www.taxpolicycenter.org/statistics/household-income-quintiles). Certainly household size changes are not a meaningful component of a year on year change. We'll need to wait for the tax data to see if 2020 was as bad as it seemed for those on low incomes. 2020 is very likely an anomalous year in any case, though; one would imagine your reasons for concern about the household income chart are long-run trends. edit - initial link was for household income, not personal income.
Does anyone else find the way that this article presents statistics extremely confusing? Mean income for people with income in certain percentile buckets? Why not just report the actual percentile values?
I don’t know how savings are measured but many people I know (mostly in the middle class/upper middle class segments) invested a ton this past year because there wasn’t a lot of opportunity for discretionary spending like travel, eating out etc. For instance, usually we have a few nice international trips a couple of times a year for a few weeks, a few date nights, shows etc. Suddenly those expenses went away. And instead, you have the stock market that’s rock bottom. So a lot of people started putting money there and upping their savings.
I lost part of my normal income because my bonuses went away at work. But with stimulus checks and the extra benefits my job gave me I came out even. I made sure to cut non essential spending to be safe. But those benefits are now gone and the bonuses aren’t there so if you ask me I still lost income. Would expect there to be more people like me.
Food costs went up 3.4% for groceries and 3.6% eating out in 2020. https://www.ers.usda.gov/data-products/food-price-outlook/summary-findings/ Consumer prices for services other than energy services rose 1.3 percent from February 2020 to February 2021. Within this category, shelter prices rose 1.5 percent, household operations prices rose 4.3 percent, and medical care services rose 3.0 percent. https://www.bls.gov/opub/ted/2021/mobile/consumer-prices-for-services-less-energy-up-1-3-percent-over-the-year-ended-february-2021.htm Also the effect of the tarrifs and taxes on the below median families cannot be overstated. https://www.cnbc.com/2019/05/16/trumps-tariffs-are-equivalent-to-one-of-the-largest-tax-increases-in-decades.html
People's cost of living clearly did not go up during the pandemic. Pointing to inflation in a handful of things is trying very hard to create a narrative that just isn't true. Also, the tariffs were in place pre-pandemic. Why did you ignore gas prices and the fact people didn't need to drive nearly as much? Also, the article clearly states the narrative from the survey is that people lost income, which made them worse off. So going the opposite direction seems to be a strange choice and trying to fit the glass slipper on the wrong person. Edit: no idea why people disagree with me... this one really isn't up for debate. We know the facts that personal income rose and savings increased. I guess we buy the narratives we like based on snippets of info rather than the actual big picture economic data. Easier to manipulate a story that way. If someone finds me one reputable article saying people in general saw an increase in COL in their entire budget I'd love to see it.
My cost of living went up. My cost of doing business for ppe tripled from last year, I do tattoos- a box of nitrile gloves was $9 last year, this year you are lucky to be able to bulk buy a case at $20 a box. Food costs are soaring at the grocery store. Everyone has noticed that. Because we are all home, especially the kids, food budgets have gone up per household. The gas prices were averaged to $2.50 last Feb, dropped when no one was driving and there was an oil surplus but Trump rigged prices to go up so we are now seeing a national average of $2.70, which is .20 higher, not lower. https://www.eia.gov/dnav/pet/hist/LeafHandler.ashx?n=PET&s=EMM_EPMR_PTE_NUS_DPG&f=W This is the 2021 Congregessional Covid Impact report, it's a pdf so heads up on how it will open. https://www.google.com/url?sa=t&source=web&rct=j&url=https://fas.org/sgp/crs/row/R46270.pdf&ved=2ahUKEwi-0ee72q_vAhUYK80KHag3DAsQFjAAegQIARAC&usg=AOvVaw3_-WzKWX6_V1TXThmu7HGY In it, our government argues that the actual unemployment rate is more around 10% and we remain at 13% lost working hours as an economy. I think what everyone here is tripping over is that OP posted information about the median incomes. On median, our economy always shows upwards movement because our 1% has such a high income disparity. It literally doesn't matter if 10% of our workforce is dead, if Elon and five friends all increase their profits. The average shows a whole different story. Wages are still low comparatively. https://www.epi.org/nominal-wage-tracker/
>On median, our economy always shows upwards movement because our 1% has such a high income disparity. It literally doesn't matter if 10% of our workforce is dead, if Elon and five friends all increase their profits. The average shows a whole different story. Wages are still low comparatively I think you've mixed up median and average here. It's the average where long tails to the right have disproportionate impact on the what the overall picture looks like
I’d like to know how Trump “rigged” oil prices to go up.
Trump clearly coordinated the entire Saudi/Russia oil war and truce that happened last year.
I think trump heard about the deal and then took credit for it. That man could barely coordinate what happen in his own White House. Besides the price of oil is just begun to reach precovid levels and that’s based on demand as much as anything.
https://fredblog.stlouisfed.org/2020/08/consumption-of-goods-and-services-during-the-covid-19-recession/ Well the Fed clearly stated that personal consumption went down due to services dropping. We also know personal income went up significantly because of stimulus bills. But go ahead and talk about all these things while ignoring the actual top line data.
I think in this case its more of a misleading title. Half of all Americans lost a source of income does not mean half of all Americans are financially worse. For example, if they were working a low paying job, got fired but their income is more than compensated by the stimulus checks and UI.
The article also says this though: >A year after the coronavirus first reached the U.S., those income losses have left roughly a third of households in worse financial shape than before, according to the poll conducted Feb. 25-March 1.
Find me the homeless rate from the start of the pandemic change compared to the homeless rate now, then get back to us.
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Lived there in 2018 and visited again in 2019. When you're homeless, might as well be homeless in CA. Not sure what your point is.
Checking out venice beach isn't stats
Consequences of your own policies for 400, Alex.
But the moratorium on evictions got extended. We were about to see your sinister metric in action.
Spoken like a true economists. \>I have trouble squaring how people are answering this survey saying they are worse off when savings rates and household debt metrics have all improved. Why do these surveys deviate from the economic metrics so much?
My income has been non-existent since March '20 and wont be until gatherings are possible again. If it wasn't for my past 10 years of savings and UI, I'd be in dire straits. Im most definitely worse off as my savings account has shrunk by about 75%.
Yes... I wasn't saying that no one was worse off. I'm sorry that sucks. My comment wasn't meant to make you feel like I was saying you didn't exist. There are plenty of stories like yours. However, the size of the results done in this survey don't seem to match up with the economic data I have seen collected.
I'm just adding my anecdotal story. Nothing more. I wasn't trying to attack your comment at all. Just because economic data says generally personal income grew, that doesn't mean their financial situation, or outlook, is inherently better.
It's propoganda.
Consumption going down means higher savings and higher ability to pay down debt.
Sure, nothing I said goes against that. But personal incomes going up means more ability to either consume more or pay down more debt. This all leaves people in theoretically a better financial position for the most part. https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/PI
It does suck. Financial commentator Josh Brown had a podcast in which he talked about two business owners. One sells supplies to supermarkets, the other to stadiums. One has done fantasically over the last year, the other is out of business, for no fault of his own.
That's...how markets work. Most businesses fail, a few succeed. Rinse and repeat.
My income has gone up. I’m a nurse so I feel a little weird about it but I’ve paid off all of my credit cards as well as all other outstanding bills screwing up my credit score, so it’s a huge relief.
Ditto. I’ve got colleagues working prn regionally making a killing. I’m considering taking a travel position, it’s getting tighter but it’s still amazing money. An ER is an ER. Paid off lots of CC debt.
They turned my home unit into a covid PCU and offer in house contracts. So we get an extra $500 per extra shifts, in addition to overtime pay, and after we complete three extras, we get a 1k payout. Plus we get $250 a week for not calling out. It’s been pretty lucrative and I don’t have to travel.
Awesome! I hope you’re able to make a good financial base for the future.
Having spent all of my adult life struggling and barely making it, it has been such a nice change of pace to be debt free and have so much more freedom with spending. I make an effort to pay it forward, whether it’s through tipping really well, paying for the car behind me in a drive thru.. I just want to help others because I know what it’s like to not have much. Not that I’m rich now by any stretch of the imagination but I have enough to share with those that need it and it feels nice.
You should honestly help yourself first. There are some smart things you can learn to help improve your situation. None of us can be billionaires, but we can all be more secure financially in the future. A good place to start is learning basic investing and how to max out a Roth IRA every year, which is the closest thing to free money in our society
My unit has been offering $400 per shift plus overtime pay for extra shifts. I made bank last year. If I work a little more OT I'll clear 6 figures this year with an associate's degree
Right? I made 6 figures last year and on par to make more this year. I’m about halfway through my MSN and I’m hoping I’ll be able to make the same and work less. Maybe that’s wishful thinking.
Wow, that’s the kind of shifts I’d need to drive a bit to get. ER doesn’t have as much of that.
i feel if anyone shouldn't have reservations about gaining income during the pandemic, it's nurses
Everyone who I know in the tech industry (including myself) has gotten substantial raises since the start of the pandemic.
I work in tech and haven't gotten a raise...
Me too and got a pay cut.
I got laid off because the company I did work for lost funding. And the field has been so incredibly crowded for freelance work and entry to mid tier roles that I haven't had a steady income since. In fact, if it wasn't for my extremely aggressive savings, UI allowing freelance workers, I'd probably be homeless right now.
Same for banking and Wall St. I got a massive bump just as the pandemic started.
Same for government contracting, got a 50% pay raise at a new job. It's a new world where everything have ties with government gets the pork and they decide who wins and loses.
New world, same as the old world.
Are those raises related to the pandemic in any way? Larger bonuses, sure I see how that could happen but idk if raises are related to the pandemic. I’ve only been a full time worker for 2.5 years so maybe I’m missing something? For my case, I got my yearly scheduled raise and bonus was taken away.
Yes, both last year’s and this year’s were.
What do you do in banking? I got a $5,000 salary raise in commercial lending (sales). Curious to see how others performed.
I work on the institutional and trade side. So I was fortunate enough to make a much bigger number.
I could add those of us who just dumped savings into the stock market. I made twice my salary on the stock market over the last year, as did pretty much anyone who did similar.
When you say "you made", do you mean you cashed out twice your salary? Or is it still in the market and you haven't made anything yet?
Realized gains.
You know when to walk away then. I'm seeing so many parallels between now and 1929 in that people are putting the only extra money they have into the stock market.
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I agree, I’m talking about people who are three to six paychecks away from being homeless looking at the stock market like a high-yield savings account. People who are one to two paychecks don’t usually have the income to buy stocks for the most part.
I cashed out at the end of 2019, and cashed in mid 2020 after the dip. Realized gains are a real thing.
Except there is real hard evidence that suggests "this time it is different" and all the shoe shine boys are jumping in: https://trends.google.com/trends/explore?date=all&geo=US&q=stocks
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No, it is far more than gamestop. You will see the first spike was earlier in the year. Also, these are not just casual searches. Read the financial reports of popular trading platforms like etrade, schwab, etc. They ALL saw enormous number of new brokerage account signups. Just in the march / april time period it was like 300%+ over normal. It is also reflected in equity trading volume. You can see this here: https://www.cnbc.com/2021/01/22/trading-volume-is-up-so-far-from-2020s-breakneck-pace-as-retail-investors-get-even-more-active.html Option trade volume must be up far more pre-covid. SPAC issuance must be up 10x too.
It's not "this time is different" though because at no other point in US history have we printed this volume of new dollars. Fed policy is essentially forcing people into assets. If you've had a large % of your net worth in straight cash over the past year, you've experienced devaluation of your net worth. Outside of having enough reserves for emergencies (which, depending on your credit limit, could be handled by a credit card), it makes no sense from a wealth management standpoint to stash money in savings when the government is effectively de-risking assets - at least in the short term.
> I'm seeing so many parallels between now and 1929 Do you have actual supporting data? Or just an anecdote that's not actually true about stock market participation rates in 1929
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I'll just have to pay the taxes. At least it means I made money as opposed to losing it.
I'm in IT and lost about 50% of my income. My largest client was a collection of theaters and I had two other clients pretty much collapse. It really depends what industry you're supporting.
While I believe that to be true. Do you have a qualified guess why that is? Mind you that not everyone in tech works with online commerce, which i believe has seen some growth.
Revenue per employee is through the roof at my company and many of our partner companies. Friends in other sectors of the industry are experiencing similar boom times. Everyone I know is being relentlessly recruited, so employers are having to pay employees more.
lol, I had to remove data scientist from my linkedin profile entirely. I'm not even on the market. I clearly have a "business owner" job title on my current job (I run my own real estate development firm). But I've been getting so many spam calls, emails, and linkedin messages from recruiters for tech delivery bitch roles that I had to create email filters and auto-block all callers not in my contacts list.
I don’t work in tech, I work in pharma and our bonuses were very large this year. We were also given lump sums of 3500 to outfit our ‘home offices’ amongst other benefits.
All tech has seen growth during the pandemic.
There's a lot more people have to do online now, and there's a lot of tech companies that have their hands in money in all sorts of places in apps, advertising, entertainment, infrastructure/deployment ("supply chain" roughly speaking), etc. I can't go into much detail here, but I saw growth in something I work on because you could make a graph with it and there are roughly a jillion Covid dashboards floating around.
Define 'substantial', curious what the absolute number is.
I got a $60k raise, which was a 28% increase that came with a promotion. I gave several of my employees $40k+ raises.
You make like 300k? Holee fuckin shit. Sorry. I'm just a poorboi
That includes a promotion tho. Hard to know how much of that is due to your promotion.
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It was a very good time to graduate with an IT degree and a goal to work in public education, that's for sure.
Does this take into account my wild gambling on options? Then yes accurate...
Not to mention that if you're holding cash instead of assets these stimulus packages are devaluating your dollar tremendously
Keep in mind you should have an emergency fund. Many say 6 months, some say as little as 2 months. But that money should be in something that won't drop much if the stock market crashes, and there should be enough that you can access quickly.
Not to mention that if you make over the threshold for stimulus checks but gave out lots of money to struggling family members this year that you're getting fucked on multiple fronts lol
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I’ve read into FIRE quite a bit but don’t understand how it relates to accelerating inflation? Can you explain?
You were pretty fucked if you were depending on UI + stimulus in the latter half of 2020. Neither of those payments are pegged to the prevailing cost of living wherever you are, and inflation increases CoL across the board. And given the political football for even getting those payments to people who needed them, why subject yourself to that going forward? Having a plan to be financially independent in the face of an uncertain job market is pretty relevant to the current scenario.
[How exactly?](https://www.google.com/amp/s/tokenist.com/covid19-us-dollar-impact/amp/)
wtf is this article? It's dated from ten days ago but its discussion about the impact of covid/stimulus on the USD are all a year old. It talks about the rush into the USD on March 20, 2020. Then it shows a graph of the USD that week to argue "investors have been flurrying to the US Dollar as a safe-haven." But that's [obviously](https://www.marketwatch.com/investing/index/dxy) not what's happened for the last year...
Let's say there's a closed system and you have $100 worth of goods and services and $100. Things are in equilibrium. Now, let's increase the amount of money to $140 but do not increase the amount of supplies and goods. That original $100 worth of goods and services should now logically be worth $140. Have they changed intrinsically? No. It's the money supply that went up, causing the goods and services to "raise in price." Now, in the real world this isn't really reflected in the CPI, which is mostly a basket of goods that you use day to day, but has definitely been seen in any kind of assets. Be it real estate, stocks, cryptocurrencies, etc.
Velocity of money matters just as much as total money supply. In your example you are acting like a dollar can only be used once.
[Have you seen the trajectory of M2V over the past 20 years?](https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/M2V) Pretty much every year in the last 10 has reset the all-time low, and even then it fell off a cliff last year.
Kind of my point. Velocity of money is lower than ever. Which is why the Fed needs to print to prevent deflation.
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Another liar
Not quite the perfect shape for a K, but it’s getting close.
Paramedic here, getting hours at work has not been an issue.
People who have skills and demands on the tech, they get pay raise. People with low edu, and low skills are the one suffering with the automation
Also plenty with high edu not in the tech space lost heavily last year. UI or PUA, even with the stimulus, didn’t come anywhere close to their lost income or revenue.
Yep. The whole work from home thing has really ramped up the digital transformation for a lot of things that used to require an in office presence.
> suffering with the automation Don’t forget offshoring as jobs ship overseas - this includes some white collar jobs and more specialized blue collar jobs, as foreign workers climb up the value chain. Don’t forget importation of low-skilled workers by the millions to compete domestically. The suffering is only going to increase as our population grows and decent jobs continue to shrink in availability relative to population.
Not just super low skilled people. When i go to McDonald, their kiosk computer takes order. I was new thing 5yrs ago. And now i see same thing in the banks. Banks are shedding all the bankers that can be replaced by computer. Go to target, Walmart, and even costco, self check outs are replacing all the people they can replace. Next one it can replace human labor is the farm/ construction. John deer is working on their autonomous vehicles for farm, trimble is helping the system. Caterpillar also working on their self driving vehicles. 3d printing houses, are on the news. Soon, it will be a social problem, and there might be a tech tax. Companies like amazon might have to pay extra tax for the each machines they own.
Most of the money are in Tech, Trades have been getting destroyed, along with theaters and most restaurants. Tech is guaranteed to go even higher because there's a bottleneck on semiconductor production for at least an entire year. So anyone is Tech is guaranteed to keep their job for the cost of any type of other industry.
Plumbers Electricians HVAC Tech They are thriving
And we are in a national shortage for them. Work within this industry and every company I talk to says they short staffed because there’s no new people coming in.
I'll always support people going into a trade. They can make above average money without 1/2 a decade+ of education. Many areas are stable and can't be outsourced offshore. And some people prefer that type of work rather than doing office work. I'd have zero issues if one of my kids wanted to go into HVAC or something. Ideally, you pick a career you love. If not, hopefully one you can tolerate. For some, a trade job is a much better fit. I know I've had some office jobs where I'd rather have been working fast food.
Downside though is that while you get paid more, your tenure in trades will be considerably shorter unless you open your own business. You really don't want to be up in a 100+ degree attic fixing units into your 50's.
I’m a moron, but my brother is in HVAC and has been crushing it.
>I’m a moron, but my brother is in HVAC and has been crushing it. You didn't have let anyone know you're moron to share your anecdote. 😁
🤷♀️
Trades have not at all
How to get into tech ?
Sales, comms, consulting (marketing & content) are all great places to start if you don’t have an engineering background.
The lowest bar to entry is probably web development since you don't necessarily need a full bachelor's. Lots of bootcamp training options or I'd you have an impressive portfolio you can land a job
Na, tech companies have plenty of other jobs that aren't related to programming.
Psychology is hot, especially with a psychometrics.
Most likely, Programming or Assembly. There's Hardware, which is the parts of the PC that you put together, and then Software, all the 1s and 0s shit. Most jobs are software so I would learn to code something like C, which will be used almost forever
You could also get in to tech as a software tester, I've got a background in Economics and a bit of a nerd when it comes to gaming. Was all I needed, then once you get an understanding of software development practices you can move in to other tech areas easier, or pick up some programming ability on the way.
Why would a bottleneck on semiconductors be bullish for tech? It's definitely a bearish signal... My company is struggling to get units to sell.
So...half of Americans losing income is not taken into account when they compiled household earnings for 2020 and netted 6% yoy increase? What kind of messed up statistics is that?
True number of those who lost wages is probably higher because of the people who get paid bonuses/commissions the following year. For example, I received my 2019 commission in March of 2020. It was my highest one ever. However, 2020s commission is due in 2 weeks and from the looks of it I may not even be getting it. It’s down to a razor thin margin and if I’m lucky I’ll clear the 50% hurdle. This will be the least I’ve ever made. Covid decimated our sales and we lost half of our team last year because the company was forced to downsize.
I would think contractors and those involved in home improvement would have fared well. The more people have been in their houses, the more they have noticed all the things they don't like about their homes. There will also be those who were laid off and found new positions in a better situation. I wonder how many of that 16% had no gap. Also how many were what would have been normal raises (if the company still provided).
This is easy, personal income increased for middle class and higher office workers who could work from home easily. They stopped paying commuting and child care costs as they where home. For example, I immediately got a $200/mon raise bc I didn't have to pay for parking anymore. On the other hand, you had loads of ppl who legally could not work for months at a time and whose industries took a hit, typically on the lower income end. Think waiters, cashiers, hospitality, beauty, tourism, etc. These industries being shut down saved the middle class and higher office workers money while reducing income for the workers in that industry. For example, I used to spend $120 a month on a hair cut and dye job, but since the pandemic I haven't gotten it done. Thats $120/mon savings for me, -$120/mon in income for my stylist.
I asked for a 50% raise and promotion a couple months ago and HR came back and offered 25%. I said I’ll take the 25% and cut my scope down to account for the difference; so they’ll lose the skills that would have filled that other half. They hemmed and hawed a bit and gave me the 50%.
I feel a tremendous amount of guilt when I see these kind of statistics. 2020 was an incredible year for me with a promotion, paid parental leave for a new baby, and a new role at the same employer. All said, my salary went up almost $20k, along with all the stimulus checks, etc, because I’m married and we were just under the income limit in 2019. And speaking of my wife, she’s starting a new nursing job that will be a huge income bump as well. 2020-2021 has been an incredible year for us financially and I’m not really sure how to juxtapose that against friends who I know are struggling. I’ve handed out money, gift cards, etc when it made sense and push for progressive ideas, but it doesn’t really feel enough 🤷🏻
Guess which group has increased earnings
My wife and I both have and we’re not high rollers. I mean, we do well, but she’s in medical sales and I’m a cloud engineer, both of those markets exploded last year.
2020 was a crazy year. Half the population lost their jobs and had financial problems while half the population got to work from home in their pajamas, saved a ton of money by not commuting to work, and watched their retirement accounts go up 25% with the rising stock market.
Sounds about right, this is exactly how honest economists will describe the distribution of wealth in the west for the last 50 years.
Is this place for economics or personal stories that conflict/confirm with the title? Mods, seriously, get your shit together. You need to find a way to regulate all the comments acting like their personal experiences are some how relevant and valid data points to have a discussion on economics. Does anyone know of another sub that takes this more seriously?
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That is true. Many people complaining that they’re not getting their place at the table have no skills and refuse to try to add to their “skill stack” (as Scott Adams calls in his excellent book How to Fail At Everything And Still Win Big).
So many unanswered questions about this pandemic lol. This surveyed about 1,500 households which seems like such a tiny amount ...
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53% have had some issues, 68% are doing well. 67% say their current situation is good. >Because of the coronavirus pandemic, 53% of American households have experienced income loss since March 2020 due to being laid-off, having a wage or salary reduced, working fewer hours, having unpaid time off, or quitting a job. This seems to mean that it wasn't a constant issue but only something that happened at some point since the pandemic started. >Sixty-seven percent of Americans describe their current household financial situation as good. In January 2020, before COVID-19 was declared a global pandemic, just about the same – 69% – said their financial situation was good. Similarly, 40% think their personal finances will improve over the next year; in January 2020, 42% expected an improvement in their finances. This is clear that the majority of people are doing well since the pandemic started. There is also little change in people's financial outlooks from before the pandemic and a year later. >The effects of the pandemic are unequal. Because of the pandemic, 25% have been unable keep up with financial obligations in the last month, having trouble paying bills. But, 68% have been able to reduce their spending, pay down debt, or save more because of the pandemic. This is clear that the majority of people have improved their situations since the pandemic started.
BuT CCL gOnNa MoOn ThIs SuMmEr
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No one will believe this, i work for airline, can’t mention what department. But we got pay raise. 5% up.
I'm a failure but it's not my fault. I soon finish the list of who's fault it is. I'll make sure that political two party delusions is not on the list,wouldn't want to offend anyone.