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Surprise! California’s 40 Qs of Rising Minimum Wage & Fast Food Industry Growth (Beating USA)

The Big Picture

To prove their point, a number of friendly commentators, academics, and hired guns all wrote endless white papers, Op-Eds and commentaries. But they made one super-sized mistake: they cheated with the numbers. Let’s have a look: Over the 10 year period from 2014 to 2023, CA has grown its QSR workforce by 31.5%

Food 307
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U.S. Demographics: Largest 5-year cohorts, and Ten most Common Ages in 2024

Calculated Risk

As I noted in 2014, demographics were positive for apartments, and more recently positive for homeownership. There are still a number of younger Boomers in their early-to-mid 60s. Note: This is using the 2023 projections main series. This graph, based on the 2024 population estimate, shows the U.S.

Economy 207
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Collapse in Prospective Home Buyer Traffic

The Big Picture

This brings us to the chart: The one above shows the traffic of prospective buyers looking at a new home (2014- 2022); the one below goes back to the 1980s. For everyone who is not a cash buyer of a house — that is about 75% of the homes sold nationally (and about half in places like Manhattan) — those numbers can be budgeted.

Budgeting 363
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U.S. Demographics: Largest 5-year cohorts, and Ten most Common Ages in 2022

Calculated Risk

As I noted in 2014, this was positive for apartments, and more recently positive for housing. This is why - a number of years ago - I was so positive on housing. In 2022, the top 6 cohorts were under 45 (the Boomers are fading away), and by 2030 the top 10 cohorts will be the youngest 10 cohorts. And this is a positive for the economy.

Economy 363
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Monthly NFPs Are Rounding Errors

The Big Picture

That is a significant number to recall whenever people posit we either are in, or just were in, or are about to tumble into a recession. but most months, the specific number is more or less a rounding error. It was that 157.087 million people are employed full-time in the United States.1 This is not a popular opinion.

Numbers 265
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Avoid the Unforced Investment Errors Even Billionaires Make

The Big Picture

Since its 2014 inception, the fund has returned 9.7% You see this all the time: After a huge run of spectacular gains, the media fetes a manager, and buyers pour in late. The inevitable mean-reversion soon follows. The average ARKK investor has seen results far worse than the fund itself, according to data from Morningstar.

Investing 268
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Wealth Inequality Starts at the Top

The Big Picture

Using IRS data, University of California at Berkeley’s Emmanuel Saez and Gabriel Zucman’s 2014 study found: The share of total wealth of the top 1% has increased steadily, from below 25% in 1978 to 42% in 2012. And, it has accelerated over the past few decades. The share of total wealth of the top 0.1%