Matt Darling

@besttrousers.bsky.social

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Matt Darling

The ARPA CTC was not just an improvement on our crummy child benefit; it actually compared favorably in its structure (especially regarding phase-outs) to other countries' child allowances, which feature steep benefits cliffs. We shouldn't simply pine for a Euro welfare state...we can do better.

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Matt Darling

Companies decided to sink billions of dollars of new investment into manufacturing plants in the U.S. after the CHIPS and Inflation Reduction Act boosted incentives for U.S. production, Check out that spike in manufacturing plant construction. It dwarfs all prior increases. 📉📈 #️⃣#️⃣

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Matt Darling

Atlantic article on the Workforce Innovation and Opportunity Act (!) and the capture of its workforce boards by employers w/ their own interests. @besttrousers.bsky.social @aaronsojourner.org www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archiv...

The Problem With ‘In Demand’ Jobswww.theatlantic.com Federal workforce-training programs prepare people for dead-end jobs that no one wants.

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Matt Darling

On this Juneteenth you’re likely to see lots of appropriations of Frederick Douglass for political causes he’d have wanted nothing to do with. Send people @paulcrider.liberalcurrents.com’s essay proving so

“Douglass is another example of a genuinely heroic figure—like Martin Luther King Jr—who has been hijacked by the political right that wants to claim great figures without grappling with what made them great in the first place.” www.liberalcurrents.com/misappropria...

Misappropriating Douglasswww.liberalcurrents.com It would be a curious kind of libertarian who embraced majoritarian democracy with enthusiasm, who advocated for a central state powerful enough to suppress private discrimination and enforce affirmat...

I have been on a LOTR kick the last few days and let me tell you that you do not want to be on a LOTR kick at the same time as you are cleaning the basement. Throwing out baby toys and ratty high school sweatshirts and thinking "it is time...I will pass into the West."

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Matt Darling

people who have never been poor cannot understand how poverty shapes your thinking about resources and money for the rest of your life my fam's grindingly poor years ended by 2004ish and it's with me every day

Lots of good responses to this thread: “What is something someone who has never been poor wouldn’t understand?” E.g. how expensive it is to be poor, like paying more for daily subway tickets bc you don’t have the cash on hand for a monthly. [threads.net]

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Matt Darling

Reply to

Julian Sanchez

The median income in the US is $74,500. If you exclude the top 1000, it’s still $74,500, because that’s how medians work you fucking knob.

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Matt Darling

All of this is obviously total, laughable horseshit if you think about it for three seconds or have the slightest acquaintance with the actual numbers, but people agree with the POINT, so it’s getting traction. In case you thought misinfo gullibility was only for the right.

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Matt Darling

Let's talk active labor market policy! Apprenticeships, sectoral employment programs, services for trade-displaced workers, support for disabled workers. You might think I hate these programs as a UBI guy. But I don't! What I hate is that our racist/classist focus with "self-sufficiency"...1/x

Whenever the cat is outside, he eats grass. The dog, in an effort to be companionable, joins him (he does not eat grass in large quantities when the cat is not present).

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Matt Darling

there's a reverse Kalecki essay to be written about how upper middle class socialists are backing themselves into austerity and unemployment

watching "left" twitter posters call for deflation is fascinating

Killer app for AI

labeler that labels all Internet Matts

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Matt Darling

In the 70s researchers hadn't yet settled on standard ways to present statistical findings so you can get into trouble if you don't read the fine print.

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Matt Darling

Awful to think Biden would have been rewarded for a 2% inflation, 8 percent unemployment economy with stagnant wages.

No, Your Pet Issue Is Not Making Biden Lose It’s inflation, not Israel or class warfare. nymag.com/intelligence...

No, Your Pet Issue Is Not Making Biden Losenymag.com It’s inflation, not Israel or class warfare.

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Matt Darling

No, Your Pet Issue Is Not Making Biden Lose It’s inflation, not Israel or class warfare. nymag.com/intelligence...

No, Your Pet Issue Is Not Making Biden Losenymag.com It’s inflation, not Israel or class warfare.

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Matt Darling

Reply to

Michael Hobbes

This is a good metaphor. I'd also say something like "alcoholics aren't more likely to die of alcohol poisoning once you control for attendance at AA meetings." — you're trying to remove the influence of a variable that is intrinsically linked to your outcome! gidmk.substack.com/p/does-gende...

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Matt Darling

With apologies to Sartori...

neoliberalism "lives on as a problematic rhetorical device that bundles together a proliferation of eclectic and contradictory concepts; a tableau of critical explorations of the material world by non-economists, clustered together by a shared signifier" www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10....

Neoliberalism as conceptwww.tandfonline.com This paper is a critical exploration of the of the term neoliberalism. Drawing on a wide range of literature across the critical social sciences and with particular emphasis on the political econom...

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Matt Darling

Reply to

Aaron Sojourner

...and that's bad! Unemployment duration is twice as high as it "should" be at this level of unemployment! www.niskanencenter.org/the-bridge-f...

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Matt Darling

The composition of the unemployed -- in terms of what shares have been unemployed for different lengths of time -- has stayed pretty stable in recent years, even as hiring rates slowed since the Fed started raising rates in spring 2022. 📉📈#️⃣#️⃣ www.bls.gov/opub/ted/202...

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Matt Darling

Olive and Noodle (or at least their ghosts) say that the FTC's ban on noncompete clauses will benefit everyone, not just the workers directly affected cepr.net/bans-on-non-...

Bans on Non-Compete Clauses Benefit Everyone: The Case of Veterinarianscepr.net This week the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) voted to ban non-compete clauses in most employment contracts. These clauses, which are now widely used, prohibit workers from working for another employer...

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Matt Darling

Reply to

George Pearkes

Powell: I was around for stagflation. It was 10% unemployment, high single digit inflation, and it was slow growth. I don't really understand where that's coming from. I don't see the stag or the flation. From this AM: bsky.app/profile/pear...

Please disregard anyone that tries to tell you "stagflation" is a thing. That phrase was dedicated to a period with low/negative GDP, high/rising inflation, and high/rising unemployment. roughly 1973-1975 on the charts below. Doesn't apply today, even remotely.

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Matt Darling

New #UIClaims flat. Continuing claims edge down. American workers continue to enjoy record high job security.

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Matt Darling

Thread!

Hey folks, I have a new big paper up at @niskanencenter.bsky.social. It's about the weird way that the USA finances our unemployment insurance system and how it is RUINING THE LABOR MARKET. www.niskanencenter.org/wp-content/u...

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Matt Darling

And on the same day as noncompete news? Fun times for econ fans