FWIW, @besttrousers@econtwitter.net on Mastodon.
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Matt Darling 
@besttrousers
Employment Policy Fellow . Previously .
Also at @besttrousers@econtwitter.net on Mastodon.
Non-Governmental & Nonprofit Organization Somerville, MAJoined March 2008
Matt Darling 🌐🏗️’s Tweets
Doing this again right now (my speech about "leave you audience wanting more" was not as received).
twitch.tv/matthew_darling
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I *might* "twitch stream" @Timberborn with my daughter this evening.
- I will use this as a way to pontificate about macroeconomics (@Timberborn's drought feature is a nice way of simulating sectoral shocks.).
- My daughter will let people who comment name baby beavers.
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Soft launch for social security work requirements?
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I'm building an economy for families that rely on their paychecks, not their stock portfolios, to put food on the table.
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Hello Hello!
If you like the sound of my voice and you want to hear a great discussion about inflation and housing data, I recommend you tune in to today's episode of on with 👀👀👀
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Don't agree with everything in here, but the big picture is right on the money.
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👇
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Replying to @wwwojtekk
Don't monetize your value, and you'll never work a day in your life
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Someone should really write a book (or make a youtube channel) about Industrial Policy in Stargate.
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these smug evil bastard chill out in their own world with nature and just turn invisible whenever the LITERAL GALACTIC SLAVE EMPIRE shows up.
Meanwhile, the humans with nothing but grit and secret space DARPA go from nothing to freeing the galaxy from slavery in like a decade.
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Seems like a real opportunity for Republicans to propose streamlining government, if they want to be serious.
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"To this day, the U.S. federal government maintains 43 distinct employment and training programs...most—if not all—have been proven ineffective by rigorous evaluations, that is if they’ve been evaluated at all." @hamandcheese theamericanconservative.com/unwinding-the-
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Anyone know of any pre-registered experiments testing the happiness benefits of ANY workplace interventions (eg, flexible work policies, email-free Fridays, workweek reductions)? We can find ZERO, which seems crazy.
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If you look at the top ten months by lowest layoffs, 4 of them happened in 2022.
(The other 6 were in 2021).
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"In some parts of the government like, you know, an organization might exist as largely a jobs program and IT modernization might sharply decrease the effectiveness of that organization at employing a large number of people..." -
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TRANSCRIPT:
Full text of our chat with @patio11 is out. It's fascinating through and through.
The most depressing part is how the US government relies on a de facto volunteer army of rich retired tech workers in order to modernize its IT. bloomberg.com/news/articles/
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TRANSCRIPT:
Full text of our chat with is out. It's fascinating through and through.
The most depressing part is how the US government relies on a de facto volunteer army of rich retired tech workers in order to modernize its IT. bloomberg.com/news/articles/
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Most of the reliance is on the government contracting apparatus, which one could have an entire series and never plumb the depths of.
The U.S. Digital Service, 18F, and NGOs like the U.S. Digital Response are the upstarts attempting to make sure we have almost any good options.
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Proposed bill in Massachusetts would consolidate two fully refundable tax credits for children and dependents into a single more generous fully refundable tax credit that broadens eligibility and drops qualifying expense requirements. 👀 malegislature.gov/Bills/193/HD32
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Helpful macro context, though the micro always matters from a human perspective. Hopefully the labor market is still strong enough for people facing layoffs to find a new job.
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This is not many jobs!
The US is a big economy - there are 154 million people working.
Since 2000, the median month has had 1.9 million layoffs (and 5.2 million hires and 2.8 million quits).
62,000 layoffs announced is just not informative. twitter.com/TaxReformExper…
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The Long Great Society era produced not only bigger government, but an array of interest groups & professions to expand expertise-driven government; it has been hard for conservatives to unwind, in part because they saw it as an extension of the New Deal
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Section on WIC is also very interesting, but too long to tweet.
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"To this day, the U.S. federal government maintains 43 distinct employment and training programs...most—if not all—have been proven ineffective by rigorous evaluations, that is if they’ve been evaluated at all."
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Many immigrants on humanitarian parole will be forced to rely on public benefits as they wait for the right to work in the U.S. on a long-term basis.
We should let them work as soon as they get here.
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1/ Continuing claims have paused their increase and are now around levels we saw last February...
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Another crazy thing that's happening right now. Troops can't retire from the Army at the moment due to a software problem. armytimes.com/news/your-army
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The U.S. is not remotely close to a recession right now.
Layoffs suck. But if you're fixated on the tech layoffs *as a signal of US econ strength," consider that they affect less than 0.1% of the economy. It's like predicting a house will fall down because the faucet broke.
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100%! The churn in the US employment market(s) is incredible. ~5 million in, ~5 million out, delta of 100k...
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This is not many jobs!
The US is a big economy - there are 154 million people working.
Since 2000, the median month has had 1.9 million layoffs (and 5.2 million hires and 2.8 million quits).
62,000 layoffs announced is just not informative. twitter.com/TaxReformExper…
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POV: you do not know a single person who has ever worked at a coffee shop
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Important perspective to keep in mind as we try scare ourselves into having a recession…
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This is not many jobs!
The US is a big economy - there are 154 million people working.
Since 2000, the median month has had 1.9 million layoffs (and 5.2 million hires and 2.8 million quits).
62,000 layoffs announced is just not informative. twitter.com/TaxReformExper…
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It's very reasonable people are complaining about egg prices (because it's surprising!) and its ridiculous that there are people posturing about egg prices.
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3.) Price signals are useful!
Eggs being high price now is going to contribute to increased supply - and more eggs and lower prices tomorrow.
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No one likes high prices!
But I suspect most people who respond to good economic news (record low unemployment, 6-month inflation back to normal rates) with complaints about egg prices are being performative.
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2.) Eggs (unlike gas or house prices) are a pretty small part of household budgets.
Average annual household expenditure on eggs in 2019 was $58 (0.1% of household income).
bls.gov/cex/tables/cal
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This is getting some negative attention, so worth noting:
1.) Recent variation in the price of eggs appears to be mostly supply shocks (avian flu) + inelastic demand.
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I don't understand the logic by which the Doomsday Clock should be closer to midnight now than it was during the Cuban Missile Crisis.
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WOW!
Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists moves the Doomsday Clock forward to 90 seconds to midnight—the closest to global catastrophe it has ever been.
This is largely, but not exclusively, because of the mounting dangers of the war in Ukraine.
thebulletin.org/doomsday-clock
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This is not many jobs!
The US is a big economy - there are 154 million people working.
Since 2000, the median month has had 1.9 million layoffs (and 5.2 million hires and 2.8 million quits).
62,000 layoffs announced is just not informative.
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Mass Company Layoffs
Google - 12,000 jobs
Microsoft - 10,000 jobs
Amazon - 18,000 jobs
Salesforce - 8,000 jobs
Goldman Sachs - 3,200 jobs
Meta - 11,000 jobs
Joe Biden: My economic policies are working.
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What's especially funny is Biden's tweet is technically inaccurate. "Continued claims" are 1.6 million, but he should be adding "continued claims" and "initial claims" since he's referring to total payments.
Still only 1.8 million.
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Has anybody taken bigger Ls the past 2 years than Labor Market Truthers (Employment Statistics are Lagging! Mass Layoffs that have been happening haven't been backed into the data yet!)
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Replying to @JustMyOpinions4
U6 is at the lowest recorded level. fred.stlouisfed.org/graph/fredgrap
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