To wrap up 2023 I thought I’d show my list of good news that few believe. Part of the problem is national statistics are about the nation, and your personal results may vary, as they say.
First, a large majority of our citizens feel crime has steadily gotten worse when numbers show the opposite. During the pandemic the murder and violent crime rates jumped but have since started back down and are much lower than the records of the early 90’s.
Property crime show a similar decline, and the total crime rate thus looks like this. The weird thing for me is I didn’t remember the 90’s as particularly dangerous.
These statistics won’t change many minds but the disconnection between perception and reality is startling. It is much the same for the economy.
Unemployment has been below 4% for 17 months now, something that hasn’t happened for a half century. Wages are finally growing faster than inflation, so there is real wage growth. GDP growth is better than almost all developed countries and may match China around 5% as their economy is slowing. Inflation is slowing, and may even be reversing in some sectors, slower inflation does not mean prices dropping. It seems to take a couple of years for us to adjust psychologically to higher price levels.
Farmers may experience this more than other sectors as the whopping increase in machinery prices – over 60% in the last two years after forty years of moderate increases – will put us on a new normal trendline. One economic mystery that has had favorable effect with little notice is health care costs. They are significantly lower than predictions and lower than general inflation resulting in not just slower growth but lower real costs.
There are several reasons being debated, but we aren’t really sure of the causes. One reality is this drop lowers by hundreds of billions the costs to the government and individuals. If there is one common thread with these misperceptions it is everything is experienced personally, but our statistics are usually national.
Unemployment rates are unimportant until you are laid off. Medical costs matter more when you are sick or without insurance. Crime reporting can overwhelm real crime trends. Most of all, I think, facts about the state of our nation and culture are now filtered through our politics.
