Kevin Drum 🕸

The American economy gained 528,000 jobs last month. We need 90,000 new jobs just to keep up with population growth, which means that net job growth clocked in at 438,000 jobs. Not bad! The headline unemployment rate went down to 3.5%. Average weekly wages increased 0.47% from last month, an annualized rate of 5.8%. Adjusted ...continue reading "Chart of the day: Net new jobs in July"

This is the Bény-sur-Mer Canadian War Cemetery in Normandy. It's near Juno Beach, the D-Day landing site that was under the command of Canadian forces. Like all the war cemeteries in Normandy, it's quite beautiful and meticulously maintained.

I've long been intrigued by the fact that poor and non-poor people have such different relationships to noise. I'm not talking about Victorian silence or library shushing, just about normal life. Poor people tend to live loudly, throw parties, play music, and squabble with each other. Middle-class folks don't, and they don't want their neighbors ...continue reading "What’s the right amount of noise?"

The Washington Post is anticipating the upcoming new school year with alarm. Today's headline warns us that "America faces catastrophic teacher shortage." As usual, I'm suspicious of stories that are all anecdote and no data, so let's take a look at some basic data. This was released yesterday and takes us through June: "Net hires" ...continue reading "Are we facing a catastrophic teacher shortage?"

Monmouth has a new poll out showing Democrats with a 7% lead on the generic congressional ballot. They call this a "slight gain" from the dead heat they measured in June, and I guess that's fair enough. Still, here's what things look like: The blue dots in September are all the recent results at 538.com ...continue reading "Democrats are gaining ground in the generic congressional polls"

According to the CDC's latest survey release, we set a record in the first quarter of 2022. Only 9.6% of Americans under 65 lacked health insurance: This is probably due to increased Medicaid coverage and the expanded subsidies in the 2021 COVID stimulus bill. Note that 9.6% represents 26 million people.

Have you heard about the new 6th Street Bridge Viaduct in Los Angeles? It opened a couple of weeks ago and everyone loves it. This includes a huge number of people who have effectively shut it down by doing donuts in their muscle cars, climbing the arches, and strolling across the bridge viaduct in mass ...continue reading "Lunchtime Photo"

Last night I posted a chart showing that housing prices had moved up and down a lot in the past 50 years and had often been higher than they are now. But you have to adjust for both inflation and mortgage rates to see this. But what about rent? That data is a little harder ...continue reading "So how about Boomer rents vs. Millennials?"

Kansas had a measure on its ballot yesterday that essentially allowed the legislature to overrule a state court decision from a few years back that had protected abortion. There wasn't much else on the ballot to interest Democrats, but it didn't matter: they turned out in droves to defeat the initiative by a whopping 59-41%. ...continue reading "What’s the matter with Kansas? Nothing!"

Politico reports that young people are pissed off: While these voters are frustrated by Washington’s slow action on climate change and student debt, there’s another, often overlooked reason for their growing pessimism: The surging cost of housing has hit them harder than anyone else. The combination of record-high home prices and escalating mortgage costs — ...continue reading "Most Boomers had higher housing costs than Millennials"

Oh come on: The Defense Department wiped the phones of top departing DOD and Army officials at the end of the Trump administration, deleting any texts from key witnesses to events surrounding the January 6, 2021, attack on the US Capitol, according to court filings. [The officials include] former acting Secretary of Defense Chris Miller, ...continue reading "Yet more people had their phones wiped after the 1/6 insurrection"

This is the Long Beach skyline seen through the Seal Beach pier. The roundish building a little left of the midpoint is the Long Beach Arena. You can see the Queen Mary between the farthest left pilings. A cruise ship is docked at the far left.

I was thinking once again about the myth of deadlock the other day, and in particular I was thinking about what Joe Biden has managed to get done in his first 18 months. Here's a list of big things, ranked from top to bottom: Afghanistan withdrawal $1.9 trillion COVID stimulus Infrastructure bill Rallying the world ...continue reading "Joe Biden’s greatest accomplishment so far is . . ."

Here's the average price of gasoline as of August 1: Adjusted for inflation, the price of a gallon of gasoline has dropped nearly a dollar. Isn't that great? The are only two kinds of people unhappy about this. The first are climate hawks who think gasoline should be going for about ten bucks a gallon ...continue reading "Gasoline prices just keep plummeting"

WARNING: I have deleted the original version of this post and replaced it with something completely different. Sorry. Shall I never be rid of this stupid topic? I'm talking, of course, about the reallocation of veterans funds from the discretionary budget to the mandatory budget. Here's where I am now. The Congressional Budget Office examined ...continue reading "Wait! Again. It was really the Senate that played games with the PACT Act"

Yikes. This PACT Act business is complicated. But I think I finally have it right. The Republican complaint about the bill is that it moves $400 billion from discretionary spending to mandatory spending. I explain why that matters here. Then I took a closer look and concluded that the reallocation was introduced in the Senate ...continue reading "Wait! It was the House that played PACT games, not the Senate"

This is a young man reading a book at the very tip of the Île de la Cité, the island in the middle of the Seine that was the original site of Paris. I had never walked out to the very end, so I decided to do it this time. Maybe next time I'll see ...continue reading "Lunchtime Photo"

The Wall Street Journal had this story splashed across its front page last night: Methinks the Journal is trying too hard. It's true that white workers get more career-advancing opportunities than POCs according to this McKinsey report, but the numbers are 55%, 60%, and 62% compared to a white baseline number of 64%. If there's ...continue reading "Front line workers of color are doing pretty well these days"

You have questions. I have answers. Yesterday I wrote about Sen. Pat Toomey's opposition to the PACT Act, which funds health care for veterans who were exposed to toxic burn pits and other environmental hazards while serving in the military. Toomey doesn't object to the overall intent of the bill, but he does object to ...continue reading "Who changed the PACT Act?"

Yesterday Jon Stewart spent the day delivering expletive-laden rants against Republicans for blocking the PACT Act. But Republicans say they have good reason to block it until a teensy weensy little change is made. Who's right? Fine. I'll start. What's this bill all about? It creates $280 billion in new funding for veterans who have ...continue reading "Who exactly is sabotaging the PACT Act?"