Posted on 12/11/2023 8:53:44 AM PST by Red Badger
Inflation is easing, unemployment is relatively low, and the stock market looks strong, economics experts say. So why does it still feel so bad?
A host of TikTokers have coined a name for it: “silent depression.”
They say the economy is bad – just as bad as it was during the Great Depression – but no one is acknowledging it.
One viral video compares 1930 prices with today’s, claiming the average home back then cost $3,900, a car was $600 and rent was $18 a month. Meanwhile, the average salary was $1,300, the TikToker says.
Today, those prices are all obviously much, much higher: $436,000 for a house, $48,000 for a new car, and about $2,000 a month for rent. Meanwhile, the average person is making $56,000, he says. (The Bureau of Labor Statistics puts that figure slightly higher at about $58,000 for someone working full time. The U.S. Census Bureau put the median household income last year at around $75,000).
In any case, the TikTok aims to point out that in 2023, those big ticket items cost a much larger percent of your annual take-home income than they did in 1930, when home prices were three times the annual salary and rent was a small fraction.
“We are in a silent depression,” the video concludes.
But journalists and researchers are quick to cast doubt on the numbers being spread around social media. New York Times reporter Jeanna Smialek dug into the stats and found one major problem: solid, reliable government data doesn’t really exist before 1940. So a lot of the numbers being used in these “silent depression” videos are from dubious sources.
It’s true housing has gotten much more expensive in the U.S. over the past 100 years, Smialek concedes, but that doesn’t translate into a depressed economy.
Jack Kelly, a senior contributor at Forbes, also wrote about the growing belief in a recent piece. Speaking with WGN Radio, he pointed out another flaw in the comparison between today’s economy and that of nearly 100 years ago.
“Back then, you didn’t have Social Security, you didn’t have welfare, you didn’t have food stamps, you didn’t have all those safety nets that we have now,” he said. “Let’s say the average young person has an iPhone, they’re going to Starbucks and having a latte – or whatever the heck they’re having – they’re leasing a car, they have a pretty good lifestyle.”
That’s not the case for everybody, he acknowledged, but said it still wasn’t a fair comparison to equate even the issues of today’s economy with those of the early 1930s.
Young people today do face real challenges, Kelly said, like amassing student loan debt, sky-high rent, and the feeling that no matter how much you save, you’ll never have the American dream ideal of homeownership.
“I could understand why young people are looking around and saying, ‘Oh my gosh, this is terrible. This is awful.’ And, you know, for young people, they don’t really know what happened with the Great Depression. People jumped out of their windows. Banks closed down, people couldn’t get their money out of the banks. You had the ‘Grapes of Wrath’ kind of thing where you had to go in your jalopy across the whole country. So I think they left that part out.”
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Listen to Kelly’s full interview with WGN Radio below:
https://serve.castfire.com/audio/4467776/Jack_Kelly__2023-12-06-020116.64kmono.mp3
an exaggeration by pampered millennials/GenZ, but economy is not nearly as good (for those not employed in the public sector) as the pundits claim.
Since I shop for my own groceries, (I’m old school), I’m convinced Joe Pedeaux’s “Government” is lying to us when they say that their “inflation” is so special that it is tanking on its own.
Excellent link ... anyone complaining about prices should refer to it. It puts things in perspective, for good or ill, very nicely.
I’ve been in a not so silent depression since Biden was installed into office
Tik Tokers are stupid.
It’s pushed by algorithms controlled by the CCP.
Some of these uploaders are actually given scripts to read, knowing that those scripted videos will be pushed by the algorithm to get them views.
Like the recent “DINK” videos on TikTok. Notice they all kind of sound exactly the same? It’s because they are all working from the same script.
The purpose of these videos mainly because China is actually going through a recession and heading for a depression. So they need to lie to their population about how it’s the same all over the world, so these videos will be shown in China to “prove” it. Oh, and if it decreases confidence and hurt the US economy, even better.
Very cool.
Tik Tok-ers, known to be keen intellects with deep understanding of makeup tutorials, softcore porn and macroeconomic research.
The Great Depression was a time of deflation. We are living through inflation.
I was in a Tropical Depression all weekend...............
We’ve seen nothing yet.
In my best MSNBC host voice:
Arrest all these TikTok posters for spreading fake news!
The "jumping" was exaggerated. Two people who jumped to their deaths in Manhattan's financial district in the weeks following the 1929 Crash.
The Grapes of Wrath was a movie based upon a novel by John Steinbeck. The cause of the Okie migration was largely due to a drought and the mechanization of the agricultural industry.
Pedeaux Joe last week blamed greedy corporations for inflation................
Indeed. This is more like the Carter years.
These past three plus years are the worst and most dire in the history of our nation. After a stolen election we’re left with a worthless reprobate whose functions are controlled by Barack Obama. Mired in debt, and with few friends and many enemies we are adrift.
What is stupefying is that Congress sits back and, with few exceptions, and acts as a feckless bystander.
AMerica needs Trump NOW! The infested White Hut needs Orkin to clear the rat laden buildings cleared and cleaned.
Americans can’t depend on government agencies for anything! They’re corrupted and infested as well. I do mean ALL agencies.
How many were 'defenestrated' by their customers?..............
Yellen and Biden’s changed the definition for recession but it still exists
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