Worth noting that "AI reduces labor demand" and "AI increases labor demand" can both be pitched with negative valence.

<me looking at my notes for a second substack post>

Little known fact: It's okay to say things that are wildly wrong and profoundly consequential, as long as you don't make eye contact while you do it and don't correct yourself afterward.

NEW: CPI inflation rose to 2.4% year-on-year, coming in at 0.3% month-on-month. Core CPI inflation fell to 2.5% year-on-year, coming in at 0.2% month-on-month

Andy going thru the epstein files taking multiple killshots including at his own longtime coauthors............ incredible. posting in case you (like me) missed it statmodeling.stat.columbia.edu/2026/01/31/f...

The CLT finally showing up when n = 30*

I've been reading a great deal about current and potential impacts of AI on labor markets. Just published: a 2-page overview of frameworks for thinking about this: www.congress.gov/crs-product/...

This is a huge oil shock and we’re, once again, seeing appropriate levels of panic, and some policy response. The world is losing ~14 million barrels of oil per day in the short term—that’s very hard to make up. Here’s what else I’m seeing 10 days into this 🧵

Exciting funding opportunity for #AI economics research! The call focuses on labor market impacts & scientific productivity. Apply to this RFP. As a program partner, I am excited to learn about your work while reviewing your applications! schmidtsciences.smapply.io/prog/ai_at_w...

“There is an enormous opportunity and need for more research on the relationship between AI and the labor market—and better data.” Read a new analysis from @jedkolko.bsky.social, and join our event this afternoon to learn more: www.hamiltonproject.org/event/unders...

gaslighting only works until you run out of fuel

"If you are tracking the impact of AI on labor markets, CEO statements are the worst way to measure it." Amen, @marthagimbel.bsky.social! @hamiltonproject.org #AIPlusWork

If we're going to do "when has automation ever made people's lives easier" discourse, I encourage everyone to read book 1 of Caro's LBJ series, and in particular the part about what happened once the Texas Hill Country got electricity and people could suddenly put their clothes in washing machines.

Some great points from @jedkolko.bsky.social. Lots of discussion of the effects of AI on labor demand; but more to do on labor supply.

Watch here: www.youtube.com/live/yiMn0jW...

If you’re 20-30 and your main circle isn’t discussing: * Their stick collection rate * The biggest stick they’ve ever picked up * Best places to stash sticks for chewing in retirement Then it’s time to find a new circle

LinkedIn: If you aren’t picking up sticks off the ground today, you’re FALLING BEHIND

Last week there were no sticks on the ground. Today there are thousands. No one is ready for What's Coming.

DEEP SPACE NINE MUGS www.masterreplicas.com/en-us/collec...

“When you see something that looks like a change in the economy, make sure it’s not a change in how data is collected.”

Just wanted to flag that @epi.org has been doing this, too. In our case we compared JOLTS to Indeed job postings, but we also look at the Challenger data. (we used here purely in the collegial sense as I did none of this work) www.epi.org/publication/...

Didn't catch this on Friday, but there was a BIG drop in the percentage of workers with multiple jobs in the BLS data. (Note that this isn't necessarily a good thing - the number of people with multiple jobs mostly fluctuates with the availability of jobs in general)

The @braddelong.bsky.social and @sjshancoxli.liberalcurrents.com reviews of @brinklindsey.bsky.social's "The Permanent Problem" are fascinating in contrast - read like two entirely different books.

Here we go again: Lecture A10 of Stat Rethinking 2026 - Unmeasured confounds, confounded mediation analysis, collider bias (again), masked discrimination, sensitivity analysis and the importance of making strong assumptions, how to defend yourself against a hostile scientific literature.

I started a substack! First piece looks at the Challenger layoff data compared to JOLTS. Why did Challenger, but not JOLTS, show an increase in layoffs the last three years? besttrousers.substack.com/p/what-the-c...

"Consider radiology. AI now assists with reading scans, but demand for radiologists continues to grow. That is not a paradox. A radiologist’s purpose is to care for patients. Reading scans is one task along the way." blogs.nvidia.com/blog/ai-5-la...

"aren't you worried about farmworkers." yes. primarily i am worried that they are doing backbeaking labor in the hot sun and we rely on an entire shadow economy which can feel free to abuse them essentially at will.

This in response to the hundreds of thousands of people who have died as a result of Trump and Musk’s attack on USAID is clear evidence of the exact same kind of brain poisoning that produces, eg, JK Rowling. Winning an argument with the strangers in your phone becomes more important than human life

lol I know OP knows this, but a reminder that Black women, for at least a century, didn't have the choice to opt out of domestic work.

I think a new federal housing law with hard limits on certain types of rental housing is a fitting addition to a century’s worth of unintended consequences, and I don’t look forward to tracking the next one. ”Don’t just do something, stand there” has a long history of being underrated.

Every second of free time you have ever had in your life was subsidized by the existence of the combine harvester.

This is the same logic for keeping a West Virginia coal mine open, IMO. I'm an AI skeptic in many ways, but farm labor has already become tremendously automated, and that's a good thing. Human beings shouldn't have to work in fields *or* in mines. That's the kind of thing I *do* want to automate.

Matt you need to be thinking less about those RTs and more about those RCTs! get back to work!

Over the past decade, The City of Austin, Texas has permitted more housing in a typical year than the entire Commonwealth of Massachusetts. In 2022 alone, Austin approved 24,227 units, about 1.5× the number permitted across Massachusetts that year.

Yeah, probably a correlation.

Sen. Booker’s centerpiece proposal is a very costly expansion of the standard deduction that flows high up the income scale, but also includes critical provisions for supporting low-income families w/ kids and people working for very low pay, as well as sound offsets. x.com/DavidABergst...

I remember that during the CTC debate, a lot of people talked about how benefit programs like the CTC are rarely clawed back. But that's because people *fight* for these programs. Not because you can give u and let history do it's thing.

The reason most households are two income is that wages went *up*. As wages increase, "working in a company" becomes a better option than "working in domestic production".

<looks straight at camera>

For 2024, the *household* income quintiles were Top: 175k+ 2nd: 105-175k 3rd: 65k-105k 4th: 34.5k-65k Lowest: 0-34.5k Obviously somewhat subjective to living area, but most upper-income folks have very little sense of where they sit.

My sister told me with a straight face that I'd have to earn 600k to live in San Diego. I'm not sure what kind of weird WSJ-brained ailment this is, but it's strangely widespread.

An underdiscussed problem with Glonzo moves is they really only work once. Put another way, every 2028 dem now has to deal with Booker's crap instead of the actual problems the tax elimination idea is meant to solve.

Gonna offer y'all some CONTENT this morning: I just GOT OFF THE PHONE with the bike thief, HAVING ARRANGED A MEETUP RIGHT NOW. Going with the police, so we're off WISH ME LUCK