Austin Clemens

@austinclemens2

Formerly Washington Center for Equitable Growth, now freelance visualizing the economy

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Austin Clemens@austinclemens2· 10d

Austin Clemens@austinclemens2· 11d

lol, love this subhead/dek

Austin Clemens@austinclemens2· 11d

ICYMI – debt-to-GDP has passed 100% and reached WW2 levels, but debt-to-wealth in the US is 20% and ~half WW2 levels. @dsmitch28.bsky.social and I argue the most cited debt statistic doesn't account for all our resources.

Austin Clemens@austinclemens2· 11d

Maybe I'm naive but I think he's wrong here and that Ds really do care about Democracy. There's virtually no disagreement on this issue among Ds.

This is especially true because one of the main complaints Democrats are raising against the SAVE America Act is that providing documentary proof of citizenship is especially burdensome to married women (a G.O.P.-leaning group) who have changed their names (a more G.O.P.-leaning subgroup) and don’t have passports (an even more G.O.P.-leaning subgroup) because their driver’s licenses won’t match their birth certificates and they’ll need extra paperwork.

I’ve tried to really push some Democratic elected officials on this, and they swear up and down that they’re just principled defenders of maximizing the ease with which married, native-born women with traditionalist gender ideals who don’t travel abroad are able to vote and that it would never in a million years occur to them to even wonder about the partisanship of this demographic.

Austin Clemens@austinclemens2· 11d

I think Yglesias is actually right in his column today that it's not a bad idea to have a national ID voting standard (if it's reasonable) and that we should get rid of the filibuster. But if you offered this bargain to Rs (reasonableness for support ending the filibuster), Rs would reject it.

This fight illustrates that even Trump can’t actually pull off the “pound the table harder” approach to getting bills passed that progressives often fantasize that a sufficiently committed Democrat could use.

Democrats are holding firm even though the core SAVE concept of requiring photo ID to vote is extremely popular and it might be wiser to get to “yes” on this.

Republicans have written a bill that pairs a popular idea that they claim to think is important (photo ID) with a bunch of dumb chaff that makes it impossible to actually enact the thing they’re saying is important.

Both sides continue to wildly overstate the practical stakes of this kind of legislation and in fact are probably backwards in terms of which side would receive the (modest) electoral benefit from making it harder to vote.

And finally, progressives who are nominally committed to getting rid of the filibuster seem to have no interest in the question of whether the best way to achieve this is to actually work with Trump on it while he’s hot and bothered.

Austin Clemens@austinclemens2· 15d

Wealth has grown much faster than GDP. And because of rising wealth inequality, more and more of it is held by the very wealthiest households. Debt-to-top 0.01% wealth (about 13,000 households) is lower now than it was for the entirety of 1940-2000.

Austin Clemens@austinclemens2· 15d

It's worth dwelling on this first figure. While debt-to-GDP has risen rapidly, debt-to-wealth has been pretty level. The levels we're at now are slightly elevated compared to the latter half of the 20th century, but are about half of the level we hit during WW2.

A chart showing debt-to-GDP and debt-to-wealth levels for the US. Debt-to-GDP peaked at 106% during WW2, then declined to about 20%, then rose again to near 100% recently. Debt-to-wealth levels peaked at 38%, dropped to around 10 at their lowest, and are now around 20%, similar to levels in the 90s.

Austin Clemens@austinclemens2· 16d

Gross.

Morse lost two partners to gun suicide: her husband, in 1991, and her partner Lewis Tabler, in 2012. Tabler had been subsumed by the N.R.A.’s anti-Obama propaganda, which convinced him that the country was on the brink of left-wing tyranny. Before Tabler’s death, he secretly removed Stormy as the beneficiary of his retirement account, leaving it to the N.R.A. instead. Distraught and penniless, Stormy desperately needed the funds, but it was the N.R.A. that came to collect.

Austin Clemens@austinclemens2· 28d

From Yglesias today and I have to ask - do any Ds do this stuff? I would have said no but I can't honestly claim to know.

The correct analysis here, I think, is that Platner was well to the left of public opinion on lots of issues — notably trans issues — but so are basically all Democrats. But Platner really did articulate a forceful opposition to assault weapons bans that would put him on the rightward edge of the party. He didn’t do land acknowledgments. He didn’t talk about “birthing people” or BIPOC or Latinx. I don’t think there’s really any evidence that being a white man with tattoos was helping him massively, but these low-effort linguistic cues probably do matter. He did not speak like a person who was constantly worried about aligning himself with the views of left-wing campus activists, and on at least one noteworthy cultural issue — guns — he staked out a moderate position.

Austin Clemens@austinclemens2· Jun 29

Austin Clemens@austinclemens2· Jun 25

Fourth, there is one place you can see falling income impacting inflation. That's savings, where the rate has dipped to 3%, down from recent averages around 5%. Consumers are simply spending more of their paychecks.

Chart of the personal savings rate. It has dipped, starting around mid-2025, from 5% to about 3% in May of 2026

Austin Clemens@austinclemens2· Jun 25

Second, I see arguments for increased credit usage. This is not evident in the data. Households still have credit to use. Delinquency rates are low as are debt service payments as % of income (see FRED attached)

Chart showing debt service payments as % of income over time. Current rates are modest (around 10%)

Chart showing credit card delinquency over time - current rates are modest (around 3%)

Austin Clemens@austinclemens2· Jun 25

Today's big business income reading makes it the largest gainer of the past 3 months, while wages, transfers, and interest/dividend income all fall

Chart showing income component changes over the past 3 months for all households. Business income is up 1.8%, rental +0.5%, wages -0.4%, transfers -0.8%, and interest and dividend -0.9%

Austin Clemens@austinclemens2· Jun 25

I use BEA's distribution of personal income data for 2024 to create a distribution now. I estimate that bottom 90 households are seeing the biggest drops over past 6 months and bottom 50 households over past 3 months. (My method assumes no change in inequality since 2024.)

Chart showing drops in personal income year-over-year, past 6 months, and past 3 months for three income groups (bottom 50, next 40, top 10). Although yoy is down most for top 10, the past 6 months have been worse for the bottom 90 (about -0.8% income) and over the past 3 months for the bottom 50 (about -0.5% income)

Austin Clemens@austinclemens2· Jun 25

Re today's Personal Income release. It was interpreted pretty favorably by some (I saw Axios), but the underlying details really aren't that great. Income is still down for all households year-over-year.

Graph showing year-over-year growth in real personal income, from January 2024 to May 2026. It is as high as 3 percent through most of 2024, then sinks a bit in 2025, and is now negative in the last 3 months, although down just 0.3% in May of 2026

Austin Clemens@austinclemens2· Jun 25

Income shares swung around during pandemic, but settled near 2019 levels. That's because transfer programs were temp. and wage growth for low-wage workers (though better than high income households, per @arindube.bsky.social), was washed out by other income components

Chart showing growth in income component by income group over the pandemic. The lower 90 saw strong income growth but weak asset growth. The top 10 saw strong business and asset income growth.

Austin Clemens@austinclemens2· Jun 25

Since the top 10% has been gaining income share, the bottom 90 is losing, but that loss is pretty much all in the middle- to upper-middle class, the 50th to 90th percentiles, who have seen their income share by 2.4 percentage points since 2000.

Income share for the 50th to 90th percentile households. It has declined throughout the 21st century, with brief rises after recessions. It is currently just under 40%

Austin Clemens@austinclemens2· Jun 25

The tracker has a 5-year minimum for charts but that means we can now look at just pre-pandemic (2019) to 2024. Here's top 10% incomes over that time - buoyed by interest and dividend income as well as strong business income

A chart showing the growth in top 10% incomes between 2019 and 2024, by income component. Assets make up the plurality of the increase, which is about +14% in inflation-adjusted terms since 2019

Austin Clemens@austinclemens2· Jun 25

I've got lots of new stuff on income inequality today. First, I've updated @equitablegrowth.bsky.social's U.S. Inequality Tracker with new BEA data for 2024. That data shows the top 10% share of income tying its previous record in the life of the data (2000-2024)

A line chart showing top 10% households share of income ove rtime - it is currently tied with its record, just above 39%. It was as low as 36% in 2020.

Austin Clemens@austinclemens2· Jun 11

Dwight Schrute holding a Sabre pyramid and saying "unleash the power of the pyramid."

Austin Clemens@austinclemens2· Jun 6

tbf, they may be thinking of this. One is any days delinquent and one is 90+ days. Maybe indicates that there is some unusual distress in certain pockets of the population.

Austin Clemens@austinclemens2· May 28

Here's a component graph showing why bottom 50% incomes are declining. It is a little bit declining real wages and mostly declining transfer payments, which is largely about OBBBA.

Austin Clemens@austinclemens2· May 28

Month-over-month households have now seen real income declines for three consecutive months. For bottom 50% households, income has fallen in 5 of the last 6 months.

Austin Clemens@austinclemens2· May 28

Important milestone today - inflation-adjusted Personal Income for households is now lower, year-over-year, than it was last April. Households have 0.4% less income now. It's starker for my estimate of bottom 50% households - 1.6% less income.

Austin Clemens@austinclemens2· May 22

The volume of coverage story is an interesting additional tidbit here that people haven't paid as much attention to. Here's 25 years of inflation coverage across several outlets + only articles that mention an election. Volume of coverage was both abnormal and horserace tied.

Austin Clemens@austinclemens2· May 1

All the K-shaped recovery punditry seems kinda pointless to me. Every modern US economic expansion is k-shaped. That's just how our economy works – business income and asset income expand faster than wages do in expansions.

A graph comparing income growth in the 10th decile to all other deciles from 2000 to 2023. In recessions, the 10th decile sees much larger income decreases than other groups do. But in expansions, their income grows faster than it does for all households.

Austin Clemens@austinclemens2· Apr 30

What's driving the drops for the bottom 50%? It's a little bit slowing wage growth, but mostly declining transfers. Again, the Medicaid/SNAP provisions of OBBBA are still in the future. Unless wages really pick up, the future is not looking especially bright for incomes below the median.

Austin Clemens@austinclemens2· Apr 30

Something experimental: Using BEA's distribution of personal income data, I extrapolated bottom 50% household income forward, under the assumption that the composition of their income has not changed. That implies that bottom 50 income is falling faster: -4.5% this month (annualized)

Austin Clemens@austinclemens2· Apr 30

What's causing this weakness? A bunch of it is declining transfers, largely caused by the expiration of ACA subsidies. Transfers have seen large annualized declines in the last two months. Wages are also down.

A chart showing yoy growth in PI, wages, and transfers and annualized monthly growth. yoy growth is declining but is still positive. annualized monthly growth is now negative for all real PI, real wages, and real transfers.

Austin Clemens@austinclemens2· Apr 30

GDP came in solid, at 2%, but real Personal Income is down 0.5% on the quarter. PI growth has been sliding since Q1 of 2025! More charts below!