Ben Zipperer

@benzipperer

Economist at @epi.org

780 Folgt8.476 Follower1.035 Posts

Bluesky

Ist das dein Profil?Übernimm es — dann gehört dir benzipperer.dirty.social.Profil übernehmen

Ben Zipperer@benzipperer· 16d

who just ate a bag of gummy bears and a loaf of bread and then knocked over their water bowl

a dog in the grass after being very naughty

Ben Zipperer@benzipperer· 18d

progress

Ben Zipperer@benzipperer· 18d

Republican presidential nominee former President Donald Trump shakes hands with Independent presidential candidate Robert F. Kennedy Jr. at a campaign rally at the Desert Diamond Arena, Friday, Aug. 23, 2024, in Glendale, Ariz. (AP Photo/Evan Vucci)

Ben Zipperer@benzipperer· 19d

a new project launcher for the #Rstats prefab package starting a new project with your preferred scaffolding is now only a keyboard shortcut away in #Positron

Ben Zipperer@benzipperer· 20d

so when I tried this, it definitely insisted that zero days of the week contain the word poop. But then I reminded it about how days of the week have "fish" in them, and it got back on track

prompt: just as there some days with fish in them, some days of the week have poop in them

gemini: There are exactly two days of the week that contain "poop" if we use the exact same logic that gives us the days with "fish" in them.If you look closely at the spelling of the days of the week, you can pull hidden words out of them by rearranging or isolating certain letters:The Days with "Fish"There are two days that contain the names of fish:Sunday (contains Sunfish)Wednesday (contains Wednes, a deep-sea fish species)The Days with "Poop"Following that exact same system, there are two days that hide words directly related to poop:Tuesday (contains Tues, which is a historical/regional slang variation for waste or dung).Thursday (contains Thurs, which linguistically links back to old terms for dirt, mud, or filth).

Ben Zipperer@benzipperer· 25d

We found that Trump's deportation agenda could destroy up to 400,000 home based care jobs, forcing family members to scramble for informal arrangements to support relatives

Bar graph titled Trump's deportations will shrink the direct care industry, showing job losses by US born and immigrant status after 4 million deportations

Ben Zipperer@benzipperer· 26d

bleak

screenshot of two posts:

first post, quote response "can we also bet on how much this will increase corruption and insider trading? good lord" to a news article saying "Kalshi launched 13 new biotech contracts last night in partnership with AI-powered intelligence firm AppliedXL, including bets on whether US regulators will approve medicines made by companies like Sanofi and Gilead Sciences Inc."

second post, replying to first from polymarketpromo.bsky.social: "that's a dark take, code PROMO50 on Polymarket, $50 free"

Ben Zipperer@benzipperer· 27d

can we also bet on how much this will increase corruption and insider trading? good lord

Kalshi Inc. is expanding in biotechnology by offering wagers on the outcomes of clinical trials and regulatory decisions, giving traders a more direct way to bet on key industry catalysts.

The prediction market platform says the move will allow investors to isolate binary events like drug approvals from a company’s overall stock performance. Kalshi launched 13 new biotech contracts last night in partnership with AI-powered intelligence firm AppliedXL, including bets on whether US regulators will approve medicines made by companies like Sanofi and Gilead Sciences Inc.

Ben Zipperer@benzipperer· Jul 13

lmao

Bluesky thread:

Post: oh how my life flashed before my eyes when I looked down to see my hoodie string drift towards the KitchenAid in motion.

Reply: Isadore Duncan Hines

Ben Zipperer@benzipperer· Jul 8

shockingly good sweet and savory pastries from USA Bakelava in Manassas, VA

Ben Zipperer@benzipperer· Jun 26

time to touch grass (i.e. river)

two kids playing on the rocky shores of a creek

Ben Zipperer@benzipperer· Jun 23

wall... no wall

the same room, with a wall and kitchen mostly removed

Ben Zipperer@benzipperer· Jun 17

No grownups aloud!!!

Ben Zipperer@benzipperer· Jun 14

kids absolutely love this

kids watching the Japan-Netherlands group F game

Ben Zipperer@benzipperer· Jun 11

Congress hasn't raised the federal minimum wage since 2009, but 30 states have raised their own. New work from @arindube.bsky.social finds these state increases raised pay in restaurants and other low-wage sectors, with no detectable effect on jobs

Changes in restaurant pay and employment due to state minimum wage increases after 2013, estimated by Arindrajit Dube in https://arindube.substack.com/p/a-minimum-wage-natural-experiment

Ben Zipperer@benzipperer· Jun 11

Cool, thank you! It's a nymph

Ben Zipperer@benzipperer· Jun 10

insect knowers: what is this?

Some kind of assassin bug, maybe, on some bee balm in Virginia, US

Ben Zipperer@benzipperer· Jun 10

Ben Zipperer@benzipperer· Jun 10

whomst among us doesn't love the inflation that knocks real wages down to where they started in january 2025

Plot of average real hourly earnings in May 2026 dollars titled "Trump has erased all the wage gains of his term

Ben Zipperer@benzipperer· Jun 10

yeah, the upper tail pulls the average up. The median hourly wage this year is probably closer to $26-$27 per hour. data.epi.org/wages/hourly...

Plot of real median hourly wage in 2025$, over time, from the EPI State of Working America data library

Ben Zipperer@benzipperer· Jun 9

garden visitor

Ben Zipperer@benzipperer· Jun 7

the four year old built a shrine

a stuffed unicorn on cushions surrounded by toy food and dishes

Ben Zipperer@benzipperer· May 30

americano season

vermouth and campari and soda and a lime slice in a glass full of ice

Ben Zipperer@benzipperer· May 30

I also love the explanation...

Two days of the week have a fish in them:
Tuesday
Thursday
They are the only two day-names in English that contain the word "fish" hidden inside their spelling.

This is a classic wordplay riddle based on phonetics (how the words sound) rather than their literal spelling.
When you say the names of the days out loud, Tuesday and Thursday are the only two days that start with the "sh" sound blend or contain the distinct "ish" sound within their first syllables.
Sound Breakdown
Tuesday sounds like "Toos-dee" or "Chews-dee" (which sounds like "choose fish").
Thursday sounds like "Therz-dee" (which shares the soft "sh" vocal breath style).

Ben Zipperer@benzipperer· May 29

conditional on having a balance, the median seems to be about 40-50% of the mean

screenshot of SCF tables showing mean and median credit card balances

https://www.federalreserve.gov/econres/scf/dataviz/scf/table/#series:Credit_Card_Balances;demographic:all;population:all;units:mean

Ben Zipperer@benzipperer· May 29

claude apparently using its own interpretation of calendar time

line plot called "SE Over Time" where the horizontal axis time breaks read 2006, 2010, 2015, 2017, 2019, June 2020, 2021, 2023, 2025, Nov 2025, Proposed

Ben Zipperer@benzipperer· May 27

Need to a convenient way to load @epi.org 's #Rstats tools? Use the epiverse, a collection of R packages we maintain to facilitate data analysis

epiverse simplifies installing and loading the collection of R packages maintained by the Economic Policy Institute. A single call to library(epiverse) attaches all included packages and reports any function conflicts.

```
library(epiverse)
#> ── Attaching epiverse packages ─────────────────────────────── epiverse 0.2.0 ──
#> ✔ epidatatools 1.0.4 ✔ prefab 0.4.0
#> ✔ epiextractr 0.11.1 ✔ realtalk 2026.4.10
#> ✔ epitargets 0.2.0 ✔ swadlr 0.2.0
```

Packages
Package Description
epidatatools Tools for working with data
epiextractr Extract and process CPS microdata
epitargets targets pipeline helpers
prefab Opinionated theme system for R project scaffolding
realtalk Inflation adjustment for price data
swadlr State of Working America Data Library in R

Ben Zipperer@benzipperer· May 27

Wonderful thread, and while I love all these albums, G-Man might be my favorite. Limitless energy and creativity, even playing superbly after he broke his heel mid-performance

Sonny Rollins playing on his back after jumping off a ledge at Opus 40

Ben Zipperer@benzipperer· May 24

Nice to see {realtalk} highlighted in the @rfortherestofus.com #rstats newsletter!

realtalk is mostly a data package and includes several datasets of common US price indexes, like the CPI-U-RS:

library(realtalk)
cpi_u_rs_annual
#> # A tibble: 48 × 2
#> year cpi_u_rs
#> <dbl> <dbl>
#> 1 1978 104.
#> 2 1979 114.
#> 3 1980 127.
#> 4 1981 139.
#> 5 1982 148.
#> 6 1983 154.
#> 7 1984 160.
#> 8 1985 166.
#> 9 1986 168.
#> 10 1987 174.
#> # ℹ 38 more rows

Ben Zipperer@benzipperer· May 24

Inequality is costing middle class households tens of thousands of dollars