Austin Clemens
@austinclemens2.bsky.social
Formerly Washington Center for Equitable Growth, now freelance visualizing the economy
created March 13, 2024
494 followers 1,105 following 1,061 posts
view profile on Bluesky Posts
Osita Nwanevu (@ositanwanevu.com) reposted
One policy solution to Young Men we should be considering is Universal Basic Electric Guitar (UBEG). I'm not joking, by the way. Kids of any gender should get a low-cost starter kit for some hobby of their choosing once they turn 13. A camera, paints, a cheap sampler, etc.
Austin Clemens (@austinclemens2.bsky.social)
I regret putting my hand in the wood chipper
Austin Clemens (@austinclemens2.bsky.social) reposted
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.
Austin Clemens (@austinclemens2.bsky.social) reply parent
Naming a traffic circle after this guy because Israelis don't believe American liberal Jews are real Jews.
Austin Clemens (@austinclemens2.bsky.social) reply parent
lot of people seem to think that the guy you talk to is the real one and the guy on the news is fake but who's to say it's not the other way around?
Austin Clemens (@austinclemens2.bsky.social) reply parent
Excellent meme usage
Leonid Baezhnev (@rev-avocado.bsky.social) reposted
Austin Clemens (@austinclemens2.bsky.social) reply parent
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.
Austin Clemens (@austinclemens2.bsky.social)
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.
Josh Fruhlinger (@jfruh.bsky.social) reposted
I guess the main thing I’m learning this week is that lots of elite media people knew charlie kirk personally and didn’t know any minnesota state legislators
Austin Clemens (@austinclemens2.bsky.social)
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?
Kelsey Atherton (@atherton.bsky.social) reposted reply parent
"You can’t stop with these sort of awful thoughts you have and then saying these awful words and not expect awful actions to take place. And that’s the unfortunate environment we are in." MSNBC fired someone for pointing out structural factors exist and Kirk contribute to making them
Austin Clemens (@austinclemens2.bsky.social)
Media coverage of Kirk’s death just continues a longstanding media tradition - the consensus that conservative Americans are more American, and their lives more valuable, than liberal Americans.
Magnum, T.I.(M.) (@hydrationchimp.bsky.social) reposted
this is what got him fired?
mike taddow (@miketaddow.bsky.social) reposted
sports
John Pfaff (@johnpfaff.bsky.social) reposted
They have changed the headline already, but also: After Hortman's murder, it looks like it took them 6 DAYS to post an editorial board comment, which generalized her death to abstract political violence, and which didn't mention her party directly, but did mention Scalise's much more clearly.
Mark Copelovitch (@mcopelov.bsky.social) reposted
Hard not to think about all the other victims of political violence who did not get this treatment from the New York Times Editorial Board
Ana Marie Cox (@anamariecox.bsky.social) reposted
No elected official Democratic party will be as cruel about Kirk's death as Mike Lee was about the death of Melissa Hortman. wisconsinexaminer.com/2025/06/17/s...
George Pearkes (@peark.es) reposted
Given the sheer scale of the United States and the number of/ease of access to guns, it is frankly miraculous that political violence isn't far, FAR more common than it currently is.
Zito (@zeets.bsky.social) reposted
Genuinely one of the most evil things I’ve ever read, and these dudes are American citizens who went to Gaza for the chance and joy of killing www.theguardian.com/world/2025/s...
Frovo (@frovo.bsky.social) reposted
ME: if an apple a day keeps the doctor away then 365 apples in one day should keep them away for a whole year DR: *pumping my stomach* yeah that’s a common misunderstanding
Austin Clemens (@austinclemens2.bsky.social) reply parent
Oh yeah? Well my AI venture will reach revenues of $145 billion by 2030!
Austin Clemens (@austinclemens2.bsky.social)
The anti-war president!
Drug Monkey (@drugmonkey.bsky.social) reposted
Approval of interracial marriage only passed 50% in, yes, the mid 1990s. news.gallup.com/poll/354638/...
Austin Clemens (@austinclemens2.bsky.social)
Didn't this guy hire a hitman to try to kill someone.
Jamison Foser (@jamisonfoser.bsky.social) reposted
is it the left that has failed to "grasp reality in all its fullness," or is it perhaps the guy who spent his entire adult life in a political movement he now realizes is extremely shitty?
Austin Clemens (@austinclemens2.bsky.social) reposted
icymi, Took a look at the @whstancil.bsky.social hypothesis re: pandemic inflation coverage. In 2023/4, NYT covered inflation as if it was about 4pp higher than it actually was.
Austin Clemens (@austinclemens2.bsky.social) reposted
Media covered inflation in 2023 and 2024 as if it was about 4 percentage points higher than it actually was. A lot of this coverage was political horserace reporting with inflation as a key narrative.
Austin Clemens (@austinclemens2.bsky.social) reply parent
Nice to know that people at the Pentagon are a-ok with striking before any legal authority has been established.
Austin Clemens (@austinclemens2.bsky.social) reply parent
I took a look at this in some major newspapers bsky.app/profile/aust...
Physicians for a Healthy Democracy (@physiciandemocracy.medsky.social) reposted
Austin Clemens (@austinclemens2.bsky.social) reply parent
Do we know anything about FP's traffic?
Austin Clemens (@austinclemens2.bsky.social) reply parent
Yeah, it's true. We'd have to go back to the 80s to have a comparable case and I don't have the resources to build that corpus. Still, there has been variation in the past 25 years; -1.5% deflation to 4.1% inflation.
Austin Clemens (@austinclemens2.bsky.social)
icymi, Took a look at the @whstancil.bsky.social hypothesis re: pandemic inflation coverage. In 2023/4, NYT covered inflation as if it was about 4pp higher than it actually was.
Austin Clemens (@austinclemens2.bsky.social) reply parent
Trotsky was an accelerationist.
Rick Hasen (@rickhasen.bsky.social) reposted
Ouch SCOTUS
Austin Clemens (@austinclemens2.bsky.social)
Media covered inflation in 2023 and 2024 as if it was about 4 percentage points higher than it actually was. A lot of this coverage was political horserace reporting with inflation as a key narrative.
Austin Clemens (@austinclemens2.bsky.social) reply parent
I mean on the plus side, they're really rubbing Glenn Greenwald's face in what a dumb fuck he is.
Austin Clemens (@austinclemens2.bsky.social) reposted
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.
Austin Clemens (@austinclemens2.bsky.social)
Alas, we have no prior information that would help us figure out if Trump is for real or not.
Austin Clemens (@austinclemens2.bsky.social) reply parent
The magnitude of the over-coverage is pretty significant. Prior to 2020, inflation is not a significant predictor of coverage volume in an OLS regression. Pandemic coverage is about 4pp of inflation over and above what inflation alone predicts (which is driven entirely by pandemic correlation)
Austin Clemens (@austinclemens2.bsky.social) reply parent
I reversed the polarity of sentiment because it's really hard to parse the negative correlation. So the spike during the pandemic is sentiment getting worse alongside inflation, although not as negative as it has been in other, smaller inflation spikes!
Austin Clemens (@austinclemens2.bsky.social) reply parent
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.
Austin Clemens (@austinclemens2.bsky.social) reply parent
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.
Austin Clemens (@austinclemens2.bsky.social) reply parent
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.
Austin Clemens (@austinclemens2.bsky.social) reply parent
Full blog below. Should be interpreted cautiously because the next highest inflation spike in the 21st century topped out at ~4% to the pandemic's ~7%. Perhaps coverage is nonlinear, there's a threshold, etc.
Austin Clemens (@austinclemens2.bsky.social)
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.
Austin Clemens (@austinclemens2.bsky.social) reply parent
The peace president.
Austin Clemens (@austinclemens2.bsky.social) reply parent
Just a thing I think about when conservatives are weeping about college kids censoring themselves.
Austin Clemens (@austinclemens2.bsky.social)
In 2007, I was tutoring a college kid in Econ 101. We were going over his test. This was a q, with "correct" answer: A person who says the minimum wage doesn't lead to job loss is: "Either lying, stupid, or both." Anyways, I assume this prof has changed this now to fit the empirical realities.
Austin Clemens (@austinclemens2.bsky.social) reply parent
Is it a "tension"? Doesn't that imply the things are working against each other? It seems like here they are working together to oppress immigrants, so I'm not evenly sure this means what the NYT thinks it means.
Austin Clemens (@austinclemens2.bsky.social)
They need a reason to believe that being on a site that hates nazis is actually morally inferior to being on a site run by a nazi
Austin Clemens (@austinclemens2.bsky.social)
Austin Clemens (@austinclemens2.bsky.social) reply parent
It's just such lazy, stupid journalism.
Jorge A. Caballero, MD (@datadrivenmd.social) reposted
I believe we could dramatically reduce dis/misinformation if we collectively agreed to ignore any news article with a headline or lede following the general template of "[name of individual or organization] says" "Elon Musk says ..." "Experts say ..." "Trump official says ..." "Critics argue ..."
Austin Clemens (@austinclemens2.bsky.social)
Austin Clemens (@austinclemens2.bsky.social)
What does “pushing the boundaries of public health” even mean?
Austin Clemens (@austinclemens2.bsky.social) reply parent
Couldn't they just put "don't encourage people to commit suicide" in their system prompts?
Marisa Kabas (@marisakabas.bsky.social) reposted
you mean "we're all going to die" wasn't polling well?
Austin Clemens (@austinclemens2.bsky.social)
I don't understand why anyone cares about this story, but this is a good response.
Austin Clemens (@austinclemens2.bsky.social)
You're telling me that without all these people praying there would be even *more* school shootings?
Aaron Reichlin-Melnick (@reichlinmelnick.bsky.social) reposted
🚨Border Patrol arrested two firefighters who were actively fighting a wildfire at the time. When the other members of the crew asked for a chance to say goodbye, a Border Patrol agent told the crew member “you need to get the f*ck out of here. I’m going to make you leave.”
Austin Clemens (@austinclemens2.bsky.social)
This was the only possible endpoint. Biden could have helped Israel out with a little tough love but he chose the course that collapsed the bipartisan consensus on Israel.
Aaron Huertas (@aaronhuertas.bsky.social) reposted
slapping the trunk of the thermostatic public opinion sedan: you can fit so many special elections in this baby
Austin Clemens (@austinclemens2.bsky.social) reply parent
Cheap solar is a much bigger deal than AI.
John Voorheis (@johnvoorheis.bsky.social) reposted
If I exfiltrated a copy of the numident to a random server I would be in jail right now
Austin Clemens (@austinclemens2.bsky.social)
"I could be wrong," is an incredible prelude here.
Austin Clemens (@austinclemens2.bsky.social)
No one ever asks JD Vance to comment on what the nazis he follows are saying
Tom Scocca (@tomscocca.bsky.social) reposted
Meanwhile the sitting vice president talks about “Cultural Marxism” and “the Cathedral” and uses esoteric White Power jargon all the time but his language is not a liability
jen rice (@jenrice.bsky.social) reposted
last night was a bleak one for TX legislature history. dan patrick literally denied senate democrats the ability to filibuster redistricting, even though rules allow it. roland gutierrez asked what precedent there was for this. patrick didn't even bother to answer. that's how the map passed.
Austin Clemens (@austinclemens2.bsky.social) reply parent
Can we shut down centrism until we figure out what's going on?
Austin Clemens (@austinclemens2.bsky.social) reply parent
I bet he's playing A Boy and his Blob
Austin Clemens (@austinclemens2.bsky.social) reply parent
Destroying our own country to own the libs
Austin Clemens (@austinclemens2.bsky.social)
I'm sorry, is she saying that higher representation of nazis is good because some Americans are nazis?
Austin Clemens (@austinclemens2.bsky.social)
Idiots.
Austin Clemens (@austinclemens2.bsky.social) reply parent
Her messages about the article seem to have more retweets here than on Twitter.
Austin Clemens (@austinclemens2.bsky.social) reply parent
I own this same harness it’s so dope.
Damion Schubert (@zenofdesign.com) reposted
Weird how there are multiple news stories about how Bluesky is kind of rude to centrists and almost no news stories about how Twitter is now so racist it would make a Klan rally blush.
Austin Clemens (@austinclemens2.bsky.social)
Saluting this rabbit related San Francisco chat group.
Dave Itzkoff (@ditzkoff.bsky.social) reposted
Austin Clemens (@austinclemens2.bsky.social) reply parent
Oh, and this one is just so cute and it blows my mind that the backgrounds are all just a big LCD screen.
Austin Clemens (@austinclemens2.bsky.social) reply parent
I love this one. Great animation.
Austin Clemens (@austinclemens2.bsky.social) reply parent
youtu.be/fn_gUcCO-gM?...
Austin Clemens (@austinclemens2.bsky.social) reply parent
lol was just going to ask this. It's not like he replies to things. I guess people get sick of seeing him re-skeeted (maybe some people think it's a serious account?)
Austin Clemens (@austinclemens2.bsky.social) reply parent
And if it did it's almost worse. It's basically saying "I occasionally give my slave the gift of free thought."
Patrick Fenelon (@patrickfenelon.bsky.social) reposted
The masks came off for reactionary centrists yesterday. Just unhinged racism.
Austin Clemens (@austinclemens2.bsky.social)
If this is true I feel real bad for parallel universe me who is just constantly losing his phone and keys and can’t find them no matter what he does.
Oliver Willis (@owillis.bsky.social) reposted
i wrote about how trump is hurting the veterans with his actions at the va and today the va press secretary made it clear to us they didn't like what we wrote. please click and share this story so you can see the kind of thing the trump administration does not like www.dailykos.com/stories/2025...
Thomas Kennedy (@tomaskenn.bsky.social) reposted
A 4-year-old boy’s ongoing care for stage 4 kidney cancer was interrupted when U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement officers illegally deported him, his sister and mother “without even a semblance of due process.”
Austin Clemens (@austinclemens2.bsky.social) reply parent
He keeps pushing back his China deal deadline so he has to make more and more concessions to try to get to a win. China figured out how to fleece Trump.
Brendel (@brendelbored.bsky.social) reposted
Looking back on the video where Jesus is super into having a guy start a small business instead of multiplying loaves and fishes
Brendel (@brendelbored.bsky.social) reposted reply parent
Don’t worry though I’m sure the secular stuff is better
Kendra "Gloom is My Beat" Pierre-Louis (@kendrawrites.com) reposted
This is so fucking stupid
Austin Clemens (@austinclemens2.bsky.social) reply parent
Can't praise BEA enough - not just the best data on income inequality in the US but makes us a world leader on the production of these kinds of statistics.
Austin Clemens (@austinclemens2.bsky.social)
Forgot to link the BEA post, with links to their articles on the methods. Next year they will have this data in January. So in January of 2026, we will have estimates of income growth and shares of income by quintile for 2025, a really incredible turnaround.
Spencer Ackerman (@attackerman.bsky.social) reposted
"They’re going to kill us here little by little, no one pays attention to us. I’ve been here for 30 days seeing injustice and mistreatment, it doesn’t stop. They abuse us in every way—with the food, in the bathroom, everything, everything." Important reporting from @statuscoupnews.bsky.social
Austin Clemens (@austinclemens2.bsky.social) reply parent
Graphs from the U.S. Inequality Tracker inequalitytracker.equitablegrowth.org/dashboard/
Austin Clemens (@austinclemens2.bsky.social) reply parent
With the result that the 4th quintile has falling income share in the economy.