A third of college graduate workers are in jobs that don’t require much preparation. Some consider these graduates to be underemployed, but they still out-earn their coworkers by an average of 40%.

Indiana has the lowest college attainment of young adults of any Midwest state. Commentators often blame brain drain. But every Midwest state except Illinois loses college grads on net, and Indiana’s loss is small — 2.2 percentage points.

Economists and the general public have two different views on what makes inflation bad. 28% of the public would trade higher inflation for higher *real* growth (88% of economists would). 86% of the public worries that their incomes won’t keep up. Just 20% of economists agree.

Monthly U.S. fentanyl overdose deaths have fallen more than 60% from their peak in mid-2023—from nearly 7,000/month to around 2,600. That's ~4,000 fewer Americans dying every month.

Since the yield curve inverted in 2022, the U.S. economy has gone a record 45 months without entering a recession.

Mark Copelovitch@mcopelov.bsky.social · 6mo ago

Man, did I get a lot of pushback on the Hellsite in <2023> when I said we'd already had a soft landing & should retire the term if folks didn't think that was true. Now we've jumped to "it happened & Trump might be screwing it up" w/o ever giving Joe Biden credit for it. bsky.app/profile/mcop...

One under-reported story about the economy over the past 15 years is that concerns about increasing healthcare expenditures turned out to be mostly unfounded. The CBO projected that healthcare would make up an increasing share of the economy, but spending mostly remained flat.

I recently wrote a little bit about the “struggling college graduates” narrative. Two main points: 1. The timing of the trend suggests it is not related to AI 2. Recent college graduates are still faring better than young people without college degrees www.incontext.indiana.edu/2025/sept-oc...

What's behind the decreasing college graduate unemployment advantage?

Labor force participation among young non-college people has declined over the past two decades. Does that explain the shrinking unemployment advantage for college graduates?

incontext.indiana.edu

We hear a lot about the promise of middle-skills jobs, with a heavy emphasis on blue collar trades. But in the past four decades, those are the jobs where wages have fallen below the median wage.

The yield curve inverted in April 2022, typically signaling recession within 6-24 months. But 38 months later, the U.S. economy still hasn’t entered recession—the longest streak since 1978.

This chart shows the common evolution of economic development in OECD countries and China: Beginning as agricultural economies, industrializing, then ultimately becoming service-based (tertiarization). blog.waldrn.com/p/what-happe...

Median number of authors on an top econ journal publication: 1963-1983: One 1993-2011: Two 2024: Three

Two quick updates: First, the analysis script is available here: github.com/dawaldron/bo... Second, I've realized that there was a mode change that I didn't note in the initial post. The Monitoring the Future survey switched from paper forms to electronics tablets between 2018 and 2020.

GitHub - dawaldron/boys-gender-equality

Contribute to dawaldron/boys-gender-equality development by creating an account on GitHub.

github.com

David Waldron@davidawaldron.bsky.social · last yr.

A concerning trend has emerged among American boys. The share of 8th and 10th graders who support gender equality has dropped from 2018 to 2023.

Here’s my latest post on the concerning trend of American boys becoming less supportive of gender equality. blog.waldrn.com/p/american-b...

American boys have become less supportive of gender equality

A survey of 8th and 10th graders shows a sharp drop in the percent of boys who believe that women should have the same opportunities as men

blog.waldrn.com

A concerning trend has emerged among American boys. The share of 8th and 10th graders who support gender equality has dropped from 2018 to 2023.

⚾️New side project for baseball fans: Minimalist newspaper-style MLB box scores, available daily at waldrn.com/boxscores/. Code available at github.com/dawaldron/ba... for those interested.

Today's annual benchmark revisions to jobs data turned tech job growth from bad to worse—instead of only slow growth from late 2023 through 2024, the industry has actually been losing jobs at a rate not seen since the Great Recession

Joey Politano🏳️‍🌈@josephpolitano.bsky.social · 2y ago

Net hiring in the tech sector remains pretty weak—only about 32k over the last twelve months, significantly lower than pre-COVID or during the 2022 tech boom

“Actually it’s good that a bunch of teenagers are unilaterally firing thousands of government employees because they have ChatGPT” i can’t get over how unfathomably stupid the average SF venture capitalist is

Here's a map of where high-tech manufacturing is located in the U.S.:

“High-tech” sounds like the future, but American high-tech manufacturing has been declining for decades.

The decline of high-tech manufacturing in the United States

America's major high-tech manufacturing industries have not escaped the general decline in manufacturing employment.

blog.waldrn.com

Indiana lawmakers are considering cutting the benefits duration for UI. Some potential effects include a less efficient labor market, lower re-employment wages, higher risk of poverty for unemployed workers.

What would happen if Indiana cut unemployment benefits?

Shortening the potential benefits period for unemployment insurance could make workers worse off and our labor market less efficient.

open.substack.com

1935 report on unemployment compensation in Indiana uses log scales for several charts #dataviz📊

Here’s a map of when housing structures were built in the United States

There’s more pickup trucks on the road than ever before. There are increasingly used for personal use only, rather than being used for work.

Here’s a 3d render of Lego Mount Rainier

Here’s a map of Indy’s foreign-born population as of 2022. #gischat #Indianapolis

Here’s a map of Indy’s foreign-born population as of 2022. #gischat #Indianapolis

Happy International Men’s Day! 🥳 Icymi: what’s hurting the least educated men? And how might that change? open.substack.com/pub/dralicee...

Where are my #HoosierSky folks? Building a (non-sports) #Hoosier Starter Pack. Where is everyone @micahpollak.com, @goodtroublein.bsky.social, @jesseforindy.bsky.social, @john-m-indy.bsky.social, @indyfromspace.bsky.social, @melbaunicorn.bsky.social & @firerokita.bsky.social? go.bsky.app/RFzF6yf

My letter to the NYT editor. I sent it yesterday; we will see if they run it. I'll put links in this thread.

#30DayMapChallenge Day 2: Lines CONUS runway orientation Inspired by trailsofwind.figures.cc