Month: March 2024

The Wall Street Journal reports today that teacher turnover is up. They base this on data from ten states. Why only ten?

National teacher exit data is released only sporadically, and many states don’t produce timely figures. But the Journal obtained information from 10 states, the most comprehensive recent compilation, that shows turnover typically followed a postpandemic pattern: a drop in the summer of 2020, followed by a spike in 2022.

This is a very odd thing to say. States may issue official exit data "sporadically," but the JOLTS survey produces data every month. This data isn't perfect since it encompasses both K-12 and higher education, but 75% of this is K-12 so it's still pretty suggestive:

Separations have been slowly rising since 2010 thanks to retirements among baby boomers. But surprise! For the past two years separations have been going down.

As usual, when you look at national data there's little evidence that teachers are quitting in great numbers or that schools can't fill their positions. There are specific areas that might have problems, but overall things are pretty normal.

I remain unmoved by the liberal panic over Joe Biden's weak poll numbers. However, I keep getting asked why, so here it is:

• Right now the race is basically a tossup.
• But it's still very early. The vast majority of swing voters aren't paying attention yet—and won't until after the conventions.
• As voter attention shifts to the campaign it will hurt Trump. Historically, the more people hear from Trump, the less they like him.
• Trump has a lower ceiling than Biden. There are just too many people who flatly won't vote for him. Biden has more upside.
• Many of the people who say they won't vote for Biden will come around later in the year. As always, the prospect of a Republican winning—especially Trump—will overcome their early doubts.
• Biden hasn't even begun to campaign yet. He has a lot of money, and when the ads start running they'll hurt Trump a lot.
• Biden has an obvious problem with his physical condition, which reads as old. But his mental condition is fine. Trump, by contrast, shows signs of serious mental deterioration. This hasn't gotten a lot of attention yet, but it will.
• Trump has a big potential downside from all his trials. His MAGA fans might not care, but centrist voters do, and it could spell big problems if prosecutors are getting headlines for Trump's misdeeds when October rolls around.

So that's that. But I have two big worries. The first is that the economy might go south, though that's looking less and less likely all the time. The second is that although the race is a tossup nationally, it really does seem like Biden is weak in the battleground states that matter. I'm not sure how that will play out.

The Wall Street Journal reports that restaurants continue to struggle thanks to surging wages for workers:

The surge in restaurant and bar worker wages since 2021 followed years in which their hourly earnings ticked up by an easier to manage 2% to 4% annually. For independent restaurants that make food from scratch, higher labor costs are particularly painful.

This is flatly untrue. Here are restaurant wages adjusted for inflation:

Wages did surge in 2021 but have been flat for the past two years. Current wages are precisely on their pre-pandemic trend. This is true for all types of restaurants tracked by the BLS (fast food, sit-down, cafeterias, etc.).

As usual, the Journal tries to make its case with a combination of anecdotes and a chart that's not adjusted for inflation. This is all but deliberate dishonesty.

So what's the reason that so many restaurants are struggling? The Journal notes that sales volume is extremely healthy, which is true. However, the Census Bureau doesn't break down sales between fast food and sit-down restaurants, and I suspect that sit-down restaurants haven't recovered completely from the pandemic. There's also this:

Takeout orders account for about 80% of Johnny Roger’s dinner business, up from 20% prepandemic. Dabbs figures it costs him $1 per customer every time someone places a to-go order, because of the extra expense of packaging.

The rise of DoorDash and other food delivery services has probably hit the restaurant business pretty hard. Not only are takeout orders more expensive, but delivery services take a slice of the revenue. Between the two, revenues are down and costs are up, especially at sit-down restaurants.

What else could it be? It's pretty clear that, while the cost of food and labor has gone up, restaurants have raised their prices even more. So it can't be that. One way or another, something else has happened to the business to make it less profitable. The growth of takeout is my guess.

I see this morning that the Supreme Court has ruled that Donald Trump can't be tossed off the ballot for participating in insurrection. The ruling was unanimous.

The Court ruled, first, that "more or less formal" proceedings are required to decide if someone is guilty of insurrection and therefore ineligible to hold office under Section 3 of the 14th Amendment:

Section 3 works by imposing on certain individuals a preventive and severe penalty—disqualification from holding a wide array of offices—rather than by granting rights to all. It is therefore necessary, as Chief Justice Chase concluded and the Colorado Supreme Court itself recognized, to “ ‘ascertain[] what particular individuals are embraced’ ” by the provision. Chase went on to explain that “[t]o accomplish this ascertainment and ensure effective results, proceedings, evidence, decisions, and enforcements of decisions, more or less formal, are indispensable.”

Second, the Court ruled that for federal offices, these proceedings needed to be federal:

It is Congress that has long given effect to Section 3 with respect to would-be or existing federal officeholders. Shortly after ratification of the Amendment, Congress enacted the Enforcement Act of 1870.... In the years following ratification, the House and Senate exercised their unique powers under Article I to adjudicate challenges contending that certain prospective or sitting Members could not take or retain their seats due to Section 3.

This comes as no surprise. And I suspect it's good news. The unanimous ruling hints at an understood agreement that the Court will side with Trump in this case and against him in the immunity case. Ideally, I imagine that Chief Justice Roberts would like to see a unanimous opinion in that case too. Stay tuned.

Joe Kent is a MAGA Republican running for Congress against Rep. Marie Gluesenkamp Perez of Washington state. He is opposed to replacing an aging bridge that crosses the Columbia River:

Mr. Kent, who denies the legitimacy of the 2020 election and has referred to those jailed for taking part in the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the Capitol as “political prisoners,” has branded the reconstruction plan an “Antifa superhighway.” He has claimed that the proposed project, which includes a light rail and tolls, will bring unwanted urban elements from Portland into the car-centric, predominantly white community of Clark County, Washington, effectively serving as “an expressway for Portland’s crime & homeless into Vancouver,” as he wrote on social media.

Huh. I wonder what Kent's alternative is? Just keep the old bridge until it collapses someday? Tear it down so nobody can cross the river? Replace it with a ferry?

Every country has some lunatics. Some of them even get into office. But we sure as hell have more than our share these days.

Monica Hesse writes in the Washington Post today about a crop of new books on marriage and divorce:

All of these treatises about divorce are really, no surprise, about marriage. Who benefits from it? Who carries it? Who gets to be the show pony and who has to be the workhorse? What should we make of the statistic that Lenz offers us, that 70 percent of divorces are initiated by wives, while their husbands seem shocked to realize that things aren’t actually fine? She cites research and anecdotes pointing to the conundrum of modern marriages: Wives may have entered the workforce, but husbands still haven’t entered the kitchen to pick up the slack. Can marriage be saved?

Earlier, Hesse pondered whether she was "the only female essayist in America who was not either getting or considering a divorce." Interesting! Of course, one thing she could have done is 60 seconds of googling:

About 1.5% of marriages end in divorce every year. This has dropped steadily since 1979 and is now a bit lower than it was 50 years ago. Admittedly this says nothing about divorce specifically among American female essayists, but it certainly suggests it's probably fairly low.

This data comes from the National Center for Family and Marriage Research at Bowling Green State University, which also provides a geographical breakdown. I know you're curious, so here it is:

Marriages are most fragile in the Bible Belt, which explains why they're the ones most concerned about the breakdown of the family. They see it and live it every day.

POSTSCRIPT: Marriage rates have dropped substantially since the '70s, which probably explains part of the low divorce rate. When people get married only if they really want to, they're less likely to eventually get divorced.

Here's some good news for millennials. In 2019 they were way below the curve in terms of wealth accumulation. Older millennials were 9% below expectations and younger millennials were a whopping 44% below expectations.

But that's all changed:

As of 2022, millennials of all ages were nearly 40% above expectations based on the wealth of previous generations at the same age.

Unsurprisingly, the main driver of increased wealth for millennials came from home appreciation. It turns out that millennials have been buying houses at close to normal rates for their age, so they benefited from the recent runup in home values.

Will this keep up? Probably not. This is a very unusual and sudden surge in wealth. Still, it's likely that in future years millennials will be close to or above the expectations of past generations. As they age, they're paying off student debt, getting better jobs, buying homes, and seeing those homes gain value. The same thing will eventually happen to Gen Z, even if many of them can barely even conceive of it yet.

I rely frequently on the YouGov polls done for the Economist. There are two reasons for this. First, they have a excellent reputation for accuracy. Second, they routinely make crosstabs available, which helps a lot if you want to dig past the simple topline numbers. Here's their latest poll of Trump vs. Biden:

Nationally, they have Trump and Biden in a dead heat, with nearly identical in-party support for both. The two also have nearly identical approval ratings.

Most of the crosstabs look reasonable with one exception: Black voters. I'm not sure what's going on here, but short of an electoral cataclysm there's no way Biden gets only 71% of the Black vote. It will almost certainly end up at 90% or so, which adds a couple of points to his overall total.

NOTE: This is a poll of all registered voters. A poll of likely voters might look a little different.

The Washington Post reports today on the latest in fertility treatments:

Red-state Christian women are rising up, speaking out to defend IVF

A typical example is Sara, who was angered by a viral Twitter post from a Christian influencer who condemned IVF:

“Show others love, grace and sympathy rather than judgment,” Sara wrote back online. “I would encourage you to not only educate yourself further but to truly put yourself in a fertility patients shoes. This is not a road taken by choice and comes with great emotional struggle and stress.”

....“They were attacking my faith. It bothered me to the core,” said Sara, a Southern Baptist who identifies as pro-life. “Because I had never viewed [IVF] as wrong, as anything other than beautiful and bringing another life into the world. … I’ve actually had a lot of friends pray for me and encourage me and help me along in the process.”

It's telling that Sara defends herself by noting her "great emotional struggle." I wonder if these pro-life Christians ever accept that as justification for abortion?

Probably not. In any case, their logic is approximately this:

• IVF inherently involves the destruction of fertilized embryos.
• But I want/need IVF.
• Therefore those embryos aren't human life.

It's human nature to reason this way—so human that I can barely even criticize it. It's just a damn shame they can't find the empathy to reason the same way when it's someone else who's in trouble.

Here's something you may or may not know: home prices in the US are nearly down to their pre-pandemic average.

In January, the median price of a new home was $420,000, only about 6% higher than the pre-pandemic average of $395,000. The data is very similar for existing homes.

POSTSCRIPT: It's worth noting that this Census data is quite different from the Case-Shiller index, which reports home prices about 25% above their pre-pandemic average and currently rising. I don't know what accounts for this difference.