America is in an economic tailspin. Why does life feel so normal?

[Anonymous]

Retail shops are very, very busy in my town. The strip shopping center parking lots are packed. It almost looks like Christmas.

During regular times the parking lots are about 20% full on weekdays.

I think people are getting their full paychecks. They are bored and they are shopping.

Contractors in my area are slammed with work. Teachers and professors are doing a lot of remodeling now.

[Anonymous]

We are not in an economic disaster. Stocks are at all time highs, housing market remains very robust, this is the biggest year for boat sales in history, and you can’t get a pool installed for like a year because there is such a backlog. Nearly every neighbor I’ve spoken to is looking at a second home purchase or trying to decide what to do with extra disposable income from no vacations.

Sure, you can say a lot of those metrics are for the “wealthy” but they also translate to jobs and tax revenue. This is not remotely like the Depression.

That said, we could absolutely get there. The $$ printing press has to slow down at some point. And setting that aside if we start to see massive credit defaults in the next 6 months, who knows what that does to the banks and then the larger economy. So I personally am not going on any spending spree just yet. But let’s not pretend this is the 1930s based on your anonymous anecdote about the relative length of the line at a neighborhood food kitchen.

[Anonymous]

We’re the lucky ones, OP. Nothing has personally effected us.

But I see it. Stores and restaurants that are closed and not coming back. For Rent signs everywhere. The unemployment numbers and economic shrink. I know people are suffering. I know this is bad.

[Anonymous]

I just got a raise. I live in the Midwest in a manufacturing state.

My friends who work for manufacturers say overall its getting a little better and they are able to hire back some of the people they had to lay off. They had been experiencing temporary shortages of inputs, which caused them to stop and restart production. Now that other countries are able to produce and ship more than they were in the spring, it's starting to look better and better.

People who work in bars/restaurants/movie theaters or have small businesses not related to construction/home installation/pets - they're still really hurting.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Yeah, we live in a desirable neighborhood that has a lot of socio-economic diversity on the border of DC, and the lines for food support at the local schools multiple times per week are massive. Just massive. It's encouraging to see such robust support, but devastating to see the need is so great.

In neighborhoods without socio-economic diversity and homogenous community, you won't see this as much because there is no life raft being thrown out 3x/week, or at least not as visibly or as fully.

More negative effects will surface. And it won't be pretty. What a disgrace of an administration that has perpetuated such an ugly divide, and exacerbated so many negatives. It didn't have to be this way.

At least this administration wants to get people back to work while the Democrats forced through the shutdowns and are led by people hiding in their basements and urging folks to stay home from their fancy $20 million mansion and to order expensive premium grade ice cream. You know, the "party of working people."

I love it when the ugly partisanship of one side blames the other side for perpetuating such an ugly divide

Ugh it’s you again.
Just tell everybody suffering to Try Something New. That’s going to solve everyone’s employment problems.

[Anonymous]

I personally know three people in our DC area wealthy neighborhood who have lost jobs or took a fifty percent pay cut. Those families are struggling.

[Anonymous]

Stimulus plus inequality.

[Anonymous]

We had someone on our community listserv post a couple of weeks ago that they had had a last minute donation of fresh produce at a food bank and asked everyone to come take some so it wouldn't rot. I decided to go get a box. The lines were blocks and block and blocks long. Two MCPD cars were directing traffic in the nearest intersection because so many people were waiting in the heat to pick up a box of free food. I'd never seen anything like it in my life.

It's real. The circumstances are already dire for many people. Food banks can tell you that much. With the extra unemployment running out this week, you can expect things to get even more visible.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:All the economic metrics show us at Great Depression levels yet life seems so normal. I know DC is always more insulated from economic downturns but stories from my relatives in other cities bely a sense or normalcy. Why is that? My grandparents had depression era stories of long bread lines, wearing tattered clothes, shantytowns popping up in cities, etc. Are we just too early in this cycle to see the worst effects?

Get outside your bubble.

The soup kitchen lines where I live in this area have always stretched a block or more. And there are car lines that are hours long.

I can see shantytown in the wooded areas around here. They have been here for years. Once the evictions start next month, you’ll see more families sleeping in cars and on the streets.

I saw a family trying to take clothing out of a donation box last week. They were looking for shoes for a boy a bit younger than my own. The mom said that when Payless closed, shoes became too expensive. I gave her $40 and she started crying. I grew up with too tight shoes due to poverty and it’s something that still breaks my heart.

Honestly, pp doesn't have to go too far outside her bubble to see the impact of the pandemic. I was house hunting not too long ago, and I came upon a long trail of cars waiting to get into a soup kitchen near Briggs Chaney Rd. The traffic to get in was so backed up that they had cops out directing traffic. This was in May.

I volunteer for my church and we pack boxes with groceries and delivery them every day. Yes, people come more than in pre-pandemic times, but at the same time, all these people come in a nice cars (I've handled boxes to BMW, Escalate, hondas, etc.), a lot of ladies comes with their nails done professionally, and holding the latest model of iPhones.

I can speak to this first hand. A little over a dozen years ago, I had to divorce my abusive H. I had two little kids, including a nursing newborn. I hadn’t gained any weight during pregnancy due to HG and quickly lost 20 lbs just nursing. I had no income as I was on maternity leave and my H refused to pay child support. It would be another six months before the court forced him to.

So I went to the food pantry. In my nice car that was bought before my separation and the only transportation I had in winter with a newborn. And I didn’t have an iPhone, but I had a cellphone that my mom bought me because my H had cut the landlines before and she didn’t want me to be in that position ever again.

Selling the car and the phone would not have netted enough money to put food on my table for the months I waited for the courts to force my H to support DC. But the woman who loaded my car gave me a withering look without knowing my story. She wanted me to feel bad when she was supposed to be helping people like me as a work of corporal mercy.

Really stop and think if Jesus would judge people for cars and phones at a time like this.

I'm so sorry that happened to you. We sold a car to help with a financial issue and honestly it was so hard to buy one again because we didn't have the money or credit to do so. If a situation is temporary it doesn't make sense to give up cars and phones, two things that most people need to find work.

+1, families can and should hold on to their cars. We don't have public transportation to support most jobs and obvs public transportation is affected by the pandemic. Case in point, they needed it to get in line for PP's food bank! It's not feasible to instantly downsize to a less expensive car because most people have financed their car. Especially right now and especially if you lost your job.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:It feels normal because about 40% of Americans are doing ok. It's the other 60% that we have to worry about. That's why I favor UBI (temporary at first, but later extended) and universal health care.

I was listening to NPR this morning and they were interviewing Senator Lankford from OK. The conservative view on this crisis is that we can't help everyone and we shouldn't try. He pretty much said that. So my best advice is to vote. It's time to renew the New Deal and make it more comprehensive.

The Democratic view: destroy the economy, force tens of millions to lose their jobs, all just to try to save an elderly frail person's life.

Is that fair?

You tell me.

You sound like a simpleton. Just like your president.

[Anonymous]

The Trump Depression is real but it's still early days. Food banks are starting to get overwhelmed. I see signs in wealthy neighborhoods too. It's going to be long and brutal.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Just because the current economic downturn isn't manifesting in the exact same way that it did during the Great Depression doesn't mean that things are normal.

+1

I was reading an article where some economists, including those who worked for big banks, etc., were saying that when the UI boost and eviction moratorium expire, the economy is going to hit a wall. We gave people money -- not a ton, but it helped -- and banned evictions, and so people are able to stay in their homes and buy food and pay at least most of their bills. When that support stops, and the economy is still struggling because there is a still a global pandemic, they are very worried that it's going to hit the fan.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:All the economic metrics show us at Great Depression levels yet life seems so normal. I know DC is always more insulated from economic downturns but stories from my relatives in other cities bely a sense or normalcy. Why is that? My grandparents had depression era stories of long bread lines, wearing tattered clothes, shantytowns popping up in cities, etc. Are we just too early in this cycle to see the worst effects?

Get outside your bubble.

The soup kitchen lines where I live in this area have always stretched a block or more. And there are car lines that are hours long.

I can see shantytown in the wooded areas around here. They have been here for years. Once the evictions start next month, you’ll see more families sleeping in cars and on the streets.

I saw a family trying to take clothing out of a donation box last week. They were looking for shoes for a boy a bit younger than my own. The mom said that when Payless closed, shoes became too expensive. I gave her $40 and she started crying. I grew up with too tight shoes due to poverty and it’s something that still breaks my heart.

Honestly, pp doesn't have to go too far outside her bubble to see the impact of the pandemic. I was house hunting not too long ago, and I came upon a long trail of cars waiting to get into a soup kitchen near Briggs Chaney Rd. The traffic to get in was so backed up that they had cops out directing traffic. This was in May.

I volunteer for my church and we pack boxes with groceries and delivery them every day. Yes, people come more than in pre-pandemic times, but at the same time, all these people come in a nice cars (I've handled boxes to BMW, Escalate, hondas, etc.), a lot of ladies comes with their nails done professionally, and holding the latest model of iPhones.

I can speak to this first hand. A little over a dozen years ago, I had to divorce my abusive H. I had two little kids, including a nursing newborn. I hadn’t gained any weight during pregnancy due to HG and quickly lost 20 lbs just nursing. I had no income as I was on maternity leave and my H refused to pay child support. It would be another six months before the court forced him to.

So I went to the food pantry. In my nice car that was bought before my separation and the only transportation I had in winter with a newborn. And I didn’t have an iPhone, but I had a cellphone that my mom bought me because my H had cut the landlines before and she didn’t want me to be in that position ever again.

Selling the car and the phone would not have netted enough money to put food on my table for the months I waited for the courts to force my H to support DC. But the woman who loaded my car gave me a withering look without knowing my story. She wanted me to feel bad when she was supposed to be helping people like me as a work of corporal mercy.

Really stop and think if Jesus would judge people for cars and phones at a time like this.

I'm so sorry that happened to you. We sold a car to help with a financial issue and honestly it was so hard to buy one again because we didn't have the money or credit to do so. If a situation is temporary it doesn't make sense to give up cars and phones, two things that most people need to find work.

+1, families can and should hold on to their cars. We don't have public transportation to support most jobs and obvs public transportation is affected by the pandemic. Case in point, they needed it to get in line for PP's food bank! It's not feasible to instantly downsize to a less expensive car because most people have financed their car. Especially right now and especially if you lost your job.

It's actually stupid to sell a reliable, well-maintained car. If you need a car, you end up having to buy something less reliable, which is actually more expensive in the long run because it means you don't have a reliable way to get to a job, or you have to pay for repairs, etc. And cars are depreciating assets, so you'll only get a fraction of what you paid.

[Anonymous]

Where my husband works their sales are up 35% YTD over last year. They are looking to hire 2 more people.

[Anonymous]

Bogleheads and Mr Money Mustache