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Oren Cass
@oren_cass
Chief Economist, @AmerCompass. Editor of "The New Conservatives." Subscribe to @commonplc: commonplace.org
Massachusetts
americancompass.org
Joined November 2011
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    Oren Cass
    @oren_cass
    Dec 11, 2024
    1/ Why is American Compass launching Commonplace, a new magazine about what matters in America? (Follow: @commonplc) For the same reason we launched @AmerCompass: to do the work of revitalizing conservatism, which legacy institutions have proved themselves incapable of. 🧵
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    Commonplace
    @commonplc
    Dec 11, 2024
    Coming in January: Commonplace. A new magazine from American Compass about what matters in America. Edited by Helen Andrews and Drew Holden. @AmerCompass @herandrews @DrewHolden360
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    Oren Cass
    @oren_cass
    Feb 20, 2020
    Thread (1/16). How is that our economic statistics suggest workers have been making slow but steady progress in recent decades, while popular perception is that their family finances are coming under increasingly untenable pressure? I've been working on this, here's my answer:
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    Oren Cass
    @oren_cass
    Jan 23, 2022
    CBS sideline reporter stands six feet away from QB Joe Burrow for post-game interview, concludes with delicate fist bump, and then when the camera is supposed to have cut away goes in for the hug. #CovidTheatre
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    Oren Cass
    @oren_cass
    Feb 20, 2020
    Replying to @oren_cass
    2/ Punchline: Popular perception is correct. In 1985, the typical male worker could cover a family of four's major expenditures (housing, health care, transportation, education) on 30 weeks of salary. By 2018 it took 53 weeks. Which is a problem, there being 52 weeks in a year.
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    Oren Cass
    @oren_cass
    Jan 17, 2024
    Absolutely brutal Boeing story @nytimes. "What used to be a duopoly has become two-thirds Airbus, one-third Boeing. A lot of people are looking at Airbus and seeing a company run by competent people. The contrast with Boeing is fairly profound.”
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    Oren Cass
    @oren_cass
    Jul 8, 2024
    1/ My long-but-worthwhile-read @nytimes is about the American political class's self-righteous detachment from the economic and social conditions of its nation. This is the root cause of present instability and poses the most serious long-term threat to the Republic. 🧵
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    Oren Cass
    @oren_cass
    Feb 20, 2020
    Replying to @oren_cass
    14/ Some might say: that's absurd, of course a family can't cover an entire health insurance premium, a 3-bed house, and college for two kids on a single worker's salary, that's not how anyone lives. But COTI shows that in the past a family COULD do that. Just not anymore.
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    Oren Cass
    @oren_cass
    Feb 20, 2020
    Replying to @oren_cass
    10/ When we say "inflation-adjusted wages look good," we are actually saying "if you could take your wage back to 1970 and spend it, you'd be better off than you were at the time with a 1970 wage." I mean, maybe that's interesting. But it doesn't describe lived experience.
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    Oren Cass
    @oren_cass
    Feb 20, 2020
    Replying to @oren_cass
    6/ A key assumption of our inflation-adjusted analyses is that old products are still available. Don't like / can't afford the $26K 2018 Grand Caravan, go buy the $18K 1996 one instead. Except you can't. Same problem is even more pernicious in areas like housing and health care.
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    Oren Cass
    @oren_cass
    Feb 20, 2020
    Replying to @oren_cass
    5/ Fair enough. But, if you're a family that needs to buy a minivan, while it's nice that the 2018 Grand Caravan ($26,300 in 2018) has many features the 1996 Grand Caravan ($17,900 in 1996) did not, you still face the problem that you need an extra $8,500 to buy one.
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    Oren Cass
    @oren_cass
    Feb 20, 2020
    Replying to @oren_cass
    8/ Again, fair enough. But we have to recognize that the median family must now pay more for health insurance and will not use the cure. Last 20 yrs, the typical family's health care consumption has gone up $2K, but their premium has gone up $13K. No wonder they feel worse off.
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    Oren Cass
    @oren_cass
    Feb 20, 2020
    Replying to @oren_cass
    13/ COTI shows that while the nominal median male wage rose from $443 to $1,026 from 1985 to 2018 (132%), the expected cost of his family's major expenditures rose from $13,227 to $54,414 (311%). He used to need 30 weeks of work to cover those costs, now he needs 53.
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    Oren Cass
    @oren_cass
    Feb 20, 2020
    Replying to @oren_cass
    9/ So, start putting these things together, and you find a situation where major costs facing families have skyrocketed unsustainably in ways our economics is incapable of acknowledging. Then we gloss over the underlying assumptions and say "inflation-adjusted wages look good."
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    Oren Cass
    @oren_cass
    Feb 20, 2020
    Replying to @oren_cass
    3/ Why do our inflation-adjusted data say otherwise? Because inflation does not assess affordability. You don't have to take my word for it. Here's a neat study by Nobel laureate Robert Shiller making the point, as cited by Fed economist Michael Bryan: econintersect.com/b2evolution/bl…