Austin Clemens
@austinclemens2.bsky.social
Formerly Washington Center for Equitable Growth, now freelance visualizing the economy
”And I pledge to invest one…
HUNDRED…”
(looking at Trump for approval)
“mill… BAJILLION dollars!”
HUNDRED…”
(looking at Trump for approval)
“mill… BAJILLION dollars!”
November 18, 2025 at 10:07 PM
”And I pledge to invest one…
HUNDRED…”
(looking at Trump for approval)
“mill… BAJILLION dollars!”
HUNDRED…”
(looking at Trump for approval)
“mill… BAJILLION dollars!”
Baltimore doing the YIMBY dream. From: www.thebanner.com/politics-pow...
November 3, 2025 at 9:26 PM
Baltimore doing the YIMBY dream. From: www.thebanner.com/politics-pow...
The hill I will die on is that everyone is wrong about Requiem for Dream, including Aronofosky. An old lady is scammed and then prescribed illegal drugs. A man needs medical care but is instead abused by racist police. This movie is about failures of the state, not the people living in it.
October 27, 2025 at 7:42 PM
The hill I will die on is that everyone is wrong about Requiem for Dream, including Aronofosky. An old lady is scammed and then prescribed illegal drugs. A man needs medical care but is instead abused by racist police. This movie is about failures of the state, not the people living in it.
Sometimes it's best to suppress your 'where are they now?' thoughts
![Clip from Korsmo's wikipedia: At Yale, he was a member of the Federalist Society, an organization for conservative and libertarian lawyers and law students.[7] In January 2006, he and other Yale Law students signed an open letter to Pennsylvania Senator Arlen Specter supporting the nomination of Samuel Alito to the Supreme Court.](https://cdn.bsky.app/img/feed_thumbnail/plain/did:plc:5sgd4c6qtlb3amh2bmu2rwk7/bafkreideigoat3zfpkabhek67i2dw7mnkzs65k6mj7cmeqr3p7rf3dctva@jpeg)
October 14, 2025 at 4:28 PM
Sometimes it's best to suppress your 'where are they now?' thoughts
Trump has already implemented vast swaths of Project 2025 but Time had to wait for Trump to wear his “I love Project 2025!” t-shirt to write about it.
October 4, 2025 at 12:35 PM
Trump has already implemented vast swaths of Project 2025 but Time had to wait for Trump to wear his “I love Project 2025!” t-shirt to write about it.
This coming Monday, October 6th, I'm doing a 1 hour event talking about @equitablegrowth.bsky.social's inequality tracker and new gov data on inequality. Anyone can join, come check it out! (registration link in the next skeet)
October 1, 2025 at 4:10 PM
This coming Monday, October 6th, I'm doing a 1 hour event talking about @equitablegrowth.bsky.social's inequality tracker and new gov data on inequality. Anyone can join, come check it out! (registration link in the next skeet)
On MONDAY the 6th, 2pm EST, join me to talk about @equitablegrowth.bsky.social's inequality tracker. I'll be talking about the data and answering questions. It will be fun! Anyone at all is welcome to join. Link to register in the next post!
September 30, 2025 at 3:58 PM
On MONDAY the 6th, 2pm EST, join me to talk about @equitablegrowth.bsky.social's inequality tracker. I'll be talking about the data and answering questions. It will be fun! Anyone at all is welcome to join. Link to register in the next post!
Huh, I wonder what this says about "edgy" comedians.
September 25, 2025 at 9:08 PM
Huh, I wonder what this says about "edgy" comedians.
And take a look at the U.S. Inequality Tracker in the meantime, where you can look at the evolution of income for particular groups over time periods you select, like this graph of bottom 50% incomes in the last economic expansion. It's fun!
September 25, 2025 at 8:15 PM
And take a look at the U.S. Inequality Tracker in the meantime, where you can look at the evolution of income for particular groups over time periods you select, like this graph of bottom 50% incomes in the last economic expansion. It's fun!
First time I've ever felt like ChatGPT is rolling its eyes at me. For the record, I asked about converting them to plain text and then using grep, but it's still a pretty good burn.
September 21, 2025 at 2:50 PM
First time I've ever felt like ChatGPT is rolling its eyes at me. For the record, I asked about converting them to plain text and then using grep, but it's still a pretty good burn.
This isn't really a fair comparison, since they had such different levels of notoriety during their lives, but it still seems pretty gross to me. In case you were wondering what the relative value of these person's lives are, journalistically speaking.
September 18, 2025 at 3:34 PM
This isn't really a fair comparison, since they had such different levels of notoriety during their lives, but it still seems pretty gross to me. In case you were wondering what the relative value of these person's lives are, journalistically speaking.
Here is 40 years of New York Times coverage of inflation. The amount of coverage devoted to inflation during the pandemic is unprecedented in this dataset.
September 15, 2025 at 7:19 PM
Here is 40 years of New York Times coverage of inflation. The amount of coverage devoted to inflation during the pandemic is unprecedented in this dataset.
Naming a traffic circle after this guy because Israelis don't believe American liberal Jews are real Jews.
September 12, 2025 at 4:03 PM
Naming a traffic circle after this guy because Israelis don't believe American liberal Jews are real Jews.
Incidentally, this is a common pattern over the business cycle: low income households tend to out-perform the rest of the distribution around recessions, but as the economy starts growing again they under-perform other groups. From @equitablegrowth.bsky.social's inequality tracker.
September 12, 2025 at 2:57 PM
Incidentally, this is a common pattern over the business cycle: low income households tend to out-perform the rest of the distribution around recessions, but as the economy starts growing again they under-perform other groups. From @equitablegrowth.bsky.social's inequality tracker.
Very useful Bank of America graph flashing some warning signs for consumer spending – wage growth for lower and middle income households both below inflation now.
September 12, 2025 at 2:55 PM
Very useful Bank of America graph flashing some warning signs for consumer spending – wage growth for lower and middle income households both below inflation now.
Noah Smith this morning says that calls for violence come only from fringe online rightists and leftists and never from politicals which seems uh... very generous to the GOP. Literally Kirk? Trump? A hundred other guys in Trump's orbit?
September 11, 2025 at 2:12 PM
Noah Smith this morning says that calls for violence come only from fringe online rightists and leftists and never from politicals which seems uh... very generous to the GOP. Literally Kirk? Trump? A hundred other guys in Trump's orbit?
Alas, we have no prior information that would help us figure out if Trump is for real or not.
September 3, 2025 at 3:37 PM
Alas, we have no prior information that would help us figure out if Trump is for real or not.
I spent a bunch of time reviewing econ lit on measuring sentiment and then implementing a cutting edge domain-specific sentiment package and... there's just not much here. Sentiment is only weakly related to inflation, and pandemic sentiment wasn't unusual.
September 3, 2025 at 3:25 PM
I spent a bunch of time reviewing econ lit on measuring sentiment and then implementing a cutting edge domain-specific sentiment package and... there's just not much here. Sentiment is only weakly related to inflation, and pandemic sentiment wasn't unusual.
You a little bit have to hand it to The Washington Post, which did not follow this pattern – mentions of inflation in a US econ context dropped off with inflation and remained low.
September 3, 2025 at 3:23 PM
You a little bit have to hand it to The Washington Post, which did not follow this pattern – mentions of inflation in a US econ context dropped off with inflation and remained low.
In the period after 2023, when inflation had mostly receded but coverage remained high, political horserace narratives seem to play an important role. Coverage where the words "election" was mentioned spiked in late 2022 and 2024.
September 3, 2025 at 3:21 PM
In the period after 2023, when inflation had mostly receded but coverage remained high, political horserace narratives seem to play an important role. Coverage where the words "election" was mentioned spiked in late 2022 and 2024.
Wrote up an exploration of inflation coverage in major newspapers in 2024. Coverage spiked a bit higher than you would expect, and stayed very elevated once inflation had declined to more typical levels. Prior to the pandemic, inflation doesn't predict volume of coverage at all.
September 3, 2025 at 3:16 PM
Wrote up an exploration of inflation coverage in major newspapers in 2024. Coverage spiked a bit higher than you would expect, and stayed very elevated once inflation had declined to more typical levels. Prior to the pandemic, inflation doesn't predict volume of coverage at all.
