John Voorheis
@johnvoorheis.bsky.social
Principal Economist, US Census Bureau
I study people, places, businesses and the environment
Opinions are not my employer's, my coauthors nor mine (in expectation)
I study people, places, businesses and the environment
Opinions are not my employer's, my coauthors nor mine (in expectation)
If I was going to watch one quarter of football today, I guess its good it was Indiana-Penn State
November 8, 2025 at 8:32 PM
If I was going to watch one quarter of football today, I guess its good it was Indiana-Penn State
The whole Walmart Thanksgiving thing is actually a cool moment to teach people about inflation. The 2024 version has both more and higher quality items than the 2025 version, it's not a fixed basket of goods! You need to adjust for the substitution effects to accurate compare prices!
November 6, 2025 at 3:01 PM
The whole Walmart Thanksgiving thing is actually a cool moment to teach people about inflation. The 2024 version has both more and higher quality items than the 2025 version, it's not a fixed basket of goods! You need to adjust for the substitution effects to accurate compare prices!
I did one (1) car thing this weekend and watched one half of a football game which is probably if anything too much masculinity
November 2, 2025 at 8:58 PM
I did one (1) car thing this weekend and watched one half of a football game which is probably if anything too much masculinity
Taking some time to reengage in one of my favorite hobbies (correcting people who refer to ROTH IRAs as if it was an acronym and not a dead senator's name on personal finance subreddits)
November 1, 2025 at 10:55 PM
Taking some time to reengage in one of my favorite hobbies (correcting people who refer to ROTH IRAs as if it was an acronym and not a dead senator's name on personal finance subreddits)
A lot of current discourse is basically looking at this graph and concluding that the solid red line is correct and also way too low.
October 31, 2025 at 3:29 PM
A lot of current discourse is basically looking at this graph and concluding that the solid red line is correct and also way too low.
Look, you can have opinions about the current state of electronic music or whatever, but the drops at 1:12 and 4:15 do have a pleasant brain vibrating quality www.youtube.com/watch?v=5yIi...
HARDSTYLE 2
YouTube video by Fred again.. - Topic
www.youtube.com
October 31, 2025 at 3:11 PM
Look, you can have opinions about the current state of electronic music or whatever, but the drops at 1:12 and 4:15 do have a pleasant brain vibrating quality www.youtube.com/watch?v=5yIi...
So basically all quantitative political debates are pre-Lucas critique Keynesians arguing about the slope of a static Phillips curve, right?
October 31, 2025 at 1:48 AM
So basically all quantitative political debates are pre-Lucas critique Keynesians arguing about the slope of a static Phillips curve, right?
The circle of life is: you hear about the full size bar house when your a kid and it's like El Dorado for kids, just the stuff of legend.
But then when you are an adult with your nice suburban house in a walkable suburb you realize *you* have to be the one to keep the legend alive
But then when you are an adult with your nice suburban house in a walkable suburb you realize *you* have to be the one to keep the legend alive
we don’t get a ton of kids on my street but the kids who do come this halloween are getting the good shit
October 28, 2025 at 9:53 PM
The circle of life is: you hear about the full size bar house when your a kid and it's like El Dorado for kids, just the stuff of legend.
But then when you are an adult with your nice suburban house in a walkable suburb you realize *you* have to be the one to keep the legend alive
But then when you are an adult with your nice suburban house in a walkable suburb you realize *you* have to be the one to keep the legend alive
So the failson of one of the early adopters of the trans panic did some shitty spreadsheet analysis to back fill his mom's politics, which is a bit refreshing, usually they do it to impress daddy
October 28, 2025 at 12:48 AM
So the failson of one of the early adopters of the trans panic did some shitty spreadsheet analysis to back fill his mom's politics, which is a bit refreshing, usually they do it to impress daddy
The implication a lot of people apparently take from the Burkhauser-Meyer research agenda on poverty is that the poverty rate post-transfers is too low and needs to dramatically increase.
There's a word for that, rhymes with type of laugh
There's a word for that, rhymes with type of laugh
May I present a former clerk to Justice Gorsuch.
October 27, 2025 at 12:28 AM
The implication a lot of people apparently take from the Burkhauser-Meyer research agenda on poverty is that the poverty rate post-transfers is too low and needs to dramatically increase.
There's a word for that, rhymes with type of laugh
There's a word for that, rhymes with type of laugh
I posit that "Bullshit Jobs" is the most damage text of the 21st century if only because it provides the pseudo intellectual scaffolding for the incurious contempt smart computer boys hold for their fellow man
the lies and disdain for labor are bad enough, but the way the culture treats these unremarkable men like they're sociologists is salt in the wound
Sam Altman Says If Jobs Gets Wiped Out, Maybe They Weren’t Even “Real Work” to Start With
So that's where we're at.
www.yahoo.com
October 25, 2025 at 2:27 PM
I posit that "Bullshit Jobs" is the most damage text of the 21st century if only because it provides the pseudo intellectual scaffolding for the incurious contempt smart computer boys hold for their fellow man
Its bad, actually, that most of the economy is based on scams or scam-adjacent things (gambling, crypto, most of the financial sector, in practice basically all AI)
October 23, 2025 at 3:27 PM
Its bad, actually, that most of the economy is based on scams or scam-adjacent things (gambling, crypto, most of the financial sector, in practice basically all AI)
My other one is that if you find yourself in a construction zone and you try to block traffic to prevent people from zipper merging (because other people merged over too soon) out of some misplaced sense of fairness you should have your driver's license revoked
Do you have any extremely niche, but serious, ethical stances?
October 16, 2025 at 10:37 PM
My other one is that if you find yourself in a construction zone and you try to block traffic to prevent people from zipper merging (because other people merged over too soon) out of some misplaced sense of fairness you should have your driver's license revoked
If you are at a grocery store 1) that has a place for a bagger to bag groceries 2) there isn't a bagger there right now and 3) you are shopping with someone else then if neither of you goes over and starts bagging groceries you should go straight to jail
Do you have any extremely niche, but serious, ethical stances?
October 16, 2025 at 10:34 PM
If you are at a grocery store 1) that has a place for a bagger to bag groceries 2) there isn't a bagger there right now and 3) you are shopping with someone else then if neither of you goes over and starts bagging groceries you should go straight to jail
Updated with 2025 CPS-ASEC public use data: young adult homeownership has now given up most of its post-2016 improvements, and the person-level definition is now below 30%
October 16, 2025 at 5:47 PM
Updated with 2025 CPS-ASEC public use data: young adult homeownership has now given up most of its post-2016 improvements, and the person-level definition is now below 30%
Weighting for nonresponse is woke
6. Data scientist Jacob Eliason was the first to spot it: Kaufmann had run his analysis using the raw survey responses rather than applying the weighting provided by FIRE. Without weighting, the data dramatically misrepresented the population—and created the illusion of a drop where none existed.
Jacob Eliason - Methodological issues in Kaufmann’s analysis of FIRE gender identity data
Ignore survey weights at your peril
jacobeliason.com
October 15, 2025 at 10:37 PM
Weighting for nonresponse is woke
So a deer jumped over my fence into my yard, and then just like... Aimlessly shuffled about for a while, wouldn't go out the gate I opened for it and then jumped over my fence into my neighbor's yard. Suburban entertainment, I guess?
October 10, 2025 at 9:10 PM
So a deer jumped over my fence into my yard, and then just like... Aimlessly shuffled about for a while, wouldn't go out the gate I opened for it and then jumped over my fence into my neighbor's yard. Suburban entertainment, I guess?
Guess I better get a lions flag to fit in in the neighborhood
October 5, 2025 at 11:37 PM
Guess I better get a lions flag to fit in in the neighborhood
We ain't got no place to go, etc
October 3, 2025 at 12:47 AM
We ain't got no place to go, etc
Not an original thought, but the twin scourges of sports betting and crypto/options trading (honestly the same thing at root) are downstream of a policy/social choice to allow inequality to increase dramatically and stay high.
October 2, 2025 at 9:54 PM
Not an original thought, but the twin scourges of sports betting and crypto/options trading (honestly the same thing at root) are downstream of a policy/social choice to allow inequality to increase dramatically and stay high.
Given the preponderance of evidence re: PM2.5 related mortality, taking literally any steps to continue burning coal when another, lower particulate matter producing option is available actually is something like murder.
September 29, 2025 at 2:11 PM
Given the preponderance of evidence re: PM2.5 related mortality, taking literally any steps to continue burning coal when another, lower particulate matter producing option is available actually is something like murder.
There's a kernel of truth here that's relevant -- through about 2023, the fortunes of the 35-45 year old cohort did improve relative to the mid-2010s -- but it remains the case that for this group, 1) homeownership is *way* lower than it was 40 years ago and 2) householder status is less common
The received standard tale of Millennials' economic woe is obsolete.
www.bloomberg.com/news/article...
www.bloomberg.com/news/article...
September 21, 2025 at 3:12 PM
There's a kernel of truth here that's relevant -- through about 2023, the fortunes of the 35-45 year old cohort did improve relative to the mid-2010s -- but it remains the case that for this group, 1) homeownership is *way* lower than it was 40 years ago and 2) householder status is less common
Your wife/girlfriend/husband/boyfriend/partner/random person you know probably wants a pumpkin donut and a dirty chai latte and if you get them one they will like you more
September 20, 2025 at 12:30 PM
Your wife/girlfriend/husband/boyfriend/partner/random person you know probably wants a pumpkin donut and a dirty chai latte and if you get them one they will like you more
A big problem with basically everything is that the median person is a confident dumbass
I have so much happening this morning!!
1. On the Searchlight website, our new housing poll. It is extremely a mixed bag. Plus toplines and xtabs for your enjoyment
www.searchlightinstitute.org/research/wha...
1. On the Searchlight website, our new housing poll. It is extremely a mixed bag. Plus toplines and xtabs for your enjoyment
www.searchlightinstitute.org/research/wha...
September 19, 2025 at 4:17 PM
A big problem with basically everything is that the median person is a confident dumbass
Verbal debate, like upper body strength for men, is largely a vestige of previous eras, so it's a sort of historical playacting. Some guys like to reenact civil war battles, some guys like to debate like a pre-literate Sumerian, everyone needs a hobby
September 17, 2025 at 1:58 PM
Verbal debate, like upper body strength for men, is largely a vestige of previous eras, so it's a sort of historical playacting. Some guys like to reenact civil war battles, some guys like to debate like a pre-literate Sumerian, everyone needs a hobby