Relevant and even prescient commentary on news, politics and the economy.

US Needs More Housing to Meet Demand and Costs

Anne Lowrey at The Atlantic recognizes a shortage of housing overall and mostly in the cities. “The U.S. Needs More Housing Than Almost Anyone Can Imagine.” Just how many houses, what is the number? How many homes must the expensive coastal cities in the US build to become affordable for middle-class and the working-poor families? Over […]

What is the Economic Middle Class?

My lovely wife shared this link with me on Facebook.  I got into a discussion in comments there with a right winger who suggested that $250,000 was a very reasonable estimate for median income in Boston. As it turns out, median household income in Boston is $51,914, close to the national average, and way below […]

The Best Data on Middle Class Decline (Updated)

by Kenneth Thomas who writes The Middle Class Economist(corrected author name) The Best Data on Middle Class Decline (Updated) The flurry of posts earlier this month on middle class decline (me, Lane Kenworthy, Matthew Yglesias, Kevin Drum) made me think some more about what the best way is to show what’s happened since the peak of […]

Define Rich V: Looking at the historical labor economy

We are taking a little side trip inthis series of defining rich based on the prior tax rate schedulesbut, this post is keeping with the process of looking at history formarkers as to the definition of rich. For any new readers, I believeas a society we knew and had definite boundaries as to what definedrich. […]

More on the Middle East

The NYT reports today of further developments in the Middle East. Jordan’s Royal Palace says the king has sacked his government in the wake of street protests and has asked an ex-army general to form a new Cabinet. King Abdullah’s move comes after thousands of Jordanians took to the streets — inspired by the regime […]