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David Waldron

@davidawaldron.bsky.social

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.

Chart showing the trend in national healthcare expenditures from 1960 to 2033. Actual spending rises from 5% of GDP in 1960 to 17.2 in 2009. Then is increases slightly to 17.6 in 2023. A 2009 projection by the CBO showed spending increasing to 23.6 in 2023 and 29.7 2033. A 2025 projection by CMS shows spending increasing to 20.3 by 2033.

October 13, 2025 at 4:06 PM

David Waldron

@davidawaldron.bsky.social

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?

www.incontext.indiana.edu

October 12, 2025 at 8:23 PM

David Waldron

@davidawaldron.bsky.social

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.

Chart showing median wages by occupation relative to overall median wage, comparing 1980 to 2023 on a log scale. Jobs are grouped by education level. Key findings: Many blue-collar jobs requiring only high school diplomas (forklift operators, taxi drivers, janitors) earned above median in 1980 but fell below median by 2023. Middle-skill construction and manufacturing jobs mostly remain near or above median. Healthcare occupations have increased relative to median wage over time. Jobs requiring bachelor's or graduate degrees consistently pay above median, with highest earners including physicians, lawyers, and software developers. Chart illustrates declining relative wages for traditionally blue-collar work over four decades.

October 3, 2025 at 10:07 AM

David Waldron

@davidawaldron.bsky.social

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.

Chart titled “Defying gravity (so far)” showing unemployment rate and non-farm payroll employment changes following yield curve inversions since 1978. Gray dashed lines show past recessions with sharp rises in unemployment and job losses. Red dotted line shows current period since 2022 inversion with unemployment staying flat around 4% and employment continuing to grow modestly, unlike historical patterns.

August 4, 2025 at 10:30 AM

David Waldron

@davidawaldron.bsky.social

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...

This chart titled "All developed economies become service-based" shows sector employment share by total output per worker (2017 USD) across agriculture, manufacturing, and services in 10 developed countries and China.
The chart contains three panels:

Left panel (Agriculture): Shows declining employment share (from 80% to near 0%) as output per worker increases. China starts highest, followed by South Korea, with USA reaching lowest agricultural employment.

Middle panel (Manufacturing): Shows an inverted U-shape pattern, with manufacturing employment first rising then falling as productivity increases. All three highlighted countries peak around 20-35% before declining.

Right panel (Services): Shows increasing employment share (from 10% to 80%) as productivity rises. USA leads with highest service employment share (80%), followed by South Korea, with China showing rapid growth but still trailing.

The data visualizes economic tertiarization - the shift from agriculture to manufacturing to services as economies develop and worker productivity increases. The x-axis (logarithmic scale) shows output per worker from 2.5k to 80k USD.

May 20, 2025 at 11:07 AM

David Waldron

@davidawaldron.bsky.social

Median number of authors on an top econ journal publication:

1963-1983: One
1993-2011: Two
2024: Three

This bar chart shows the distribution of number of authors in leading U.S. general economics journals from 1963 to 2024. The y-axis represents the percent of articles (0-90%), and the x-axis shows publication years (1963, 1973, 1983, 1993, 2003, 2011, 2024). Different colored bars represent the number of authors: black (1 author), blue (2 authors), red (3 authors), green (4 authors), and yellow (5-7 authors). The trend shows a clear decline in single-authored papers (from over 80% in 1963 to about 12% in 2024) and a rise in multi-authored papers, particularly 2-author papers (increasing from about 17% to approximately 27%) and 3-author papers (growing to about 32% by 2024). By 2024, articles with 4 authors (17%) and 5-7 authors (11%) became significant portions of publications, categories that barely existed in earlier decades.

May 15, 2025 at 12:40 AM

David Waldron

@davidawaldron.bsky.social

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.

May 5, 2025 at 4:03 PM

David Waldron

@davidawaldron.bsky.social

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

May 3, 2025 at 4:46 AM

David Waldron

@davidawaldron.bsky.social

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.

This chart shows two side-by-side line graphs tracking the percentage of American 8th and 10th grade boys who support gender equality from 1990 to 2023.

The left graph shows responses to "A woman should have the same job opportunities as a man." The percentage who "Agree at all" dropped from 84% in 2018 to 72% in 2023, while those who "Agree completely" fell more sharply from 63% to 45%.

The right graph shows responses to "Men and women should be paid the same money if they do the same work." The percentage who "Agree at all" declined from 87% in 2018 to 79% in 2023, while those who "Agree completely" dropped from 72% to 57%.

Both graphs show relatively stable attitudes from 1990 until 2018, followed by notable declines through 2023. The data comes from the Monitoring the Future study.

May 3, 2025 at 4:32 AM

David Waldron

@davidawaldron.bsky.social

⚾️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.

Baseball Box Scores - April 06, 2025

waldrn.com

April 7, 2025 at 6:07 PM

Reposted by David Waldron

Joey Politano🏳️‍🌈

@josephpolitano.bsky.social

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

a graph of tech job growth over time, showing a large decline in employment starting in late 2023 to early 2025

February 7, 2025 at 2:38 PM

Reposted by David Waldron

Sam

@samd.bsky.social

“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

Garry Tan
@garrytan.9h
XI
Whoever made the original graphic doesn't understand the scale and speed of smart high IQ people who can program, and what they can do in a moment when intelligence now on infinite tap using LLMs
Daniel
@growing_daniel • 10h
Luke being charge of our money is an incredible shift. I didn't know this was an option, amazing development
Who are these little boys?
And why are they in charge of our money?
Akash Bobba
Luke Farritor Ethan Shaotran Edward Coristine
(Not pictured: Gauthier Cole Killian & Gavin Kliger)
The US Treasury pays for:
Social security
Medicare
Grants
Federal salaries
And is usually run by grown-ups.

February 3, 2025 at 3:06 PM

David Waldron

@davidawaldron.bsky.social

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

Map of the U.S. showing cities with high-tech manufacturing employment, with cones representing the amount of workers based on the height of the cone, and the color of the cone representing the dominant industry

January 29, 2025 at 8:19 PM

David Waldron

@davidawaldron.bsky.social

“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

January 29, 2025 at 5:18 PM

David Waldron

@davidawaldron.bsky.social

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.