Results for “median voter”
84 found

That was then, this is now (median voter edition)

by  Tyler Cowen in

Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas said this week that the Biden administration planned to waive 26 environmental, public health and cultural preservation laws in order to fast-track constructing sections of the border wall in South Texas.

…The administration would use funds from a 2019 appropriation designated by Congress to construct the wall, which was spurred by a disaster declaration by the Trump administration…

“There is presently an acute and immediate need to construct physical barriers and roads in the vicinity of the border of the United States in order to prevent unlawful entries into the United States.”

Here is the full story, via Rich Dewey.  And note that an actual jaguar is crossing the border.

Median voter theorem, again

by  Tyler Cowen in

Sweden looks set to miss its legislated climate targets, the latest sign of how combating global warming is slipping down the policy agenda.

The nation — the first globally to set a milestone target for net zero emissions — won’t reach that goal for 2045 with current measures, according to the center-right government’s 2024 budget submitted on Wednesday. It cited the tough economic climate along with a plunging krona, expecting to also fall short on other targets for protecting the environment.

Here is more from Bloomberg.  And from the BBC:

Rishi Sunak is considering weakening some of the government’s key green commitments in a major policy shift.

It could include delaying a ban on the sales of new petrol and diesel cars and phasing out gas boilers, multiple sources have told the BBC.

I do hope the median voter ends up happy with these ones…

Is ChatGPT moving toward the median voter?

by  Tyler Cowen in

Mary C. Daly understands the median voter theorem

by  Tyler Cowen in

Ms. Daly…has shifted her tone particularly dramatically in recent weeks…

As recently as mid-November, she had argued that the Fed should be patient in removing its support, avoiding an overreaction to inflation that might prove temporary and risk unnecessarily slowing the recovery of the labor market. But incoming data have confirmed that employers are still struggling to hire even as consumer prices are rising at the fastest clip in nearly 40 years. Rising rents and tangled supply chains could continue to push up inflation. And she’s running into more people like that woman in Walgreens.

“My community members are telling me they’re worried about inflation,” Ms. Daly said last week.

Here is the NYT story, and note she is not the most right-leaning member of the FOMC.  This, in a nutshell, is why I think inflation will converge to a reasonable level, albeit with a possibly high degree of pain along the way.

That was then, this is now, climate change edition the median voter theorem remains underrated

by  Tyler Cowen in

“Higher gasoline costs, if left unchecked, risk harming the ongoing global recovery. The price of crude oil has been higher than it was at the end of 2019, before the onset of the pandemic. While Opec+ recently agreed to production increases, these increases will not fully offset previous production cuts that Opec+ imposed during the pandemic until well into 2022. At a critical moment in the global recovery, this is simply not enough. President Biden has made clear that he wants Americans to have access to affordable and reliable energy, including at the pump. Although we are not a party to Opec, the United States will always speak to international partners regarding issues of significance that affect our national economic and security affairs, in public and private.”

That is, um…not from the Trump administration, rather…

Pigou Club getting smaller!

The median voter theorem is underrated

by  Tyler Cowen in

That is the theme of my latest Bloomberg column, here is one excerpt:

More broadly, it is striking how many policies of the Biden administration reflect ideas or proposals from the Trump administration. Biden’s “Buy America” plan could be a Trump administration protectionist initiative. The Trump administration spent $2 trillion on coronavirus relief; the Biden administration proposed and spent $1.9 trillion. Trump wanted to pull U.S. troops out of Afghanistan; Biden actually did. Biden has left many of Trump’s anti-China policies, such as the tariffs, in place. Biden also has continued rapid deportation programs for immigrants.

All of these policies are broadly aimed at the center. It is no accident that Biden, even though his “honeymoon” period is ending, has remained broadly popular in the polls.

There are still areas in which Republicans and Democrats differ greatly, of course. On Covid-19, they have divergent attitudes and safety practices. Still, the Biden administration has not seriously considered either a nationwide vaccination mandate or governmental vaccine passports, as neither would be especially popular with voters.

Then there are cultural issues, where the median voter theorem most definitely does not hold. What seems to have happened is that Americans have picked one area in which they can let off steam and express their mutual mistrust — and in turn that has allowed a kind of consensus to form around many actual government policies. Perhaps what the median voter theorem misses is that individuals have a deeply irrational side and need to treat some political debates more like a mixed martial arts competition than as a forum for getting things done.

The median voter theorem tends to be unpopular in an increasingly left-leaning academic environment. It has a decidedly anti-utopian quality, as it insists that policy is not going to deviate too far from the views of the ordinary American. It implies that many projects of left-wing progressives are pipe dreams, at least until major shifts in public opinion set in. It dismisses the common progressive attitude that current voters would welcome major left-wing reforms and are only waiting for a heroic politician to stare down the special interest groups that oppose them.

To be clear, there is no presumption that the median voter actually wants the right thing. As an economist, I am particularly frustrated by how frequently American voters fail to appreciate the benefits of international trade and migration, or how they tend to believe that government programs financed by borrowing represent a free lunch. They also put disproportionate weight on low gasoline prices, to cite yet another example from a long list of mistaken views.

Still, as a practical matter, the median voter probably represents a kind of protection against the worst excesses and arrogances of the human spirit. Failed politicians do tend to get voted out of office. Crazy views, regardless of how popular they may be, tend to get sanded down by the political process.

The upshot, for the U.S. at least, is that the reality of American life is very different from the one that pundits regularly describe.

True.

So what’s it like being red-pilled by the median voter theorem?

by  Tyler Cowen in

President Biden will limit the number of refugees allowed into the United States this year to the historically low level set by the Trump administration, reversing an earlier promise to welcome more than 60,000 people fleeing war and persecution into the country.

Here is more from the NYT.  I have been stressing for several years now that the Democrats are not going to die on the hill of an ultimately unpopular immigration policy.  Here is an earlier Angus, penned before the Afghanistan withdrawal news:

The marketing and associated cultural capital, however, are indeed very different, and you can expect that to continue and possibly intensify.

Update: Biden will budge.

That was then, this is now, the median voter theorem remains underrated

by  Tyler Cowen in

In March 2020, the Trump administration put into place one of the most controversial and restrictive immigration policies ever implemented at the U.S. border — and in January, President Biden quietly continued it.

The Biden administration says the Trump-era policy known as Title 42, which relies on a 1944 public health statute to indefinitely close the border to “nonessential” travel, remains necessary to limit the spread of the coronavirus. At the same time, Biden officials say, migrants at the southern border still can seek protection in the United States, a right afforded to them under U.S. law.

Yet since March 20, 2020, when the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention issued its order invoking Title 42, U.S. border officials have claimed unchecked, unilateral authority to summarily expel from the country hundreds of thousands of immigrant adults, families and unaccompanied minors who didn’t have prior permission to enter, without due process or access to asylum — let alone testing for the coronavirus.

In a year of Title 42, of more than 650,000 encounters with migrants at the U.S.-Mexico border, fewer than 1% have been able to seek protection, the Los Angeles Times has learned…

“The Biden administration’s use of Title 42 is flatly illegal,” said Lee Gelernt of the American Civil Liberties Union, who sued the Trump administration over the policy, which the Biden administration is defending in court. “There is zero daylight between the Biden administration and Trump administration’s position.”

Here is the full story, via Rich.  Here is further coverage.  And why is the problem not going away?  Here is the FT:

Experts said Biden’s decision to exempt minors from expulsion will keep the numbers flowing. “It’s a no-brainer”, said Jasmin Singh, a New York-based immigration lawyer. “It’s all kids at the moment,” said one person in Guatemala involved in the smuggling, or coyote, trade.

Ongoing…

The median voter theorem remains underrated

by  Tyler Cowen in

President-elect Joe Biden said Tuesday he will keep his pledge to roll back the Trump administration’s restrictive asylum policies but at a slower pace than he initially promised, to avoid winding up with “2 million people on our border.”

Biden said immigration is one of the urgent matters he will tackle starting next month as the nation emerges from “one of the toughest years we’ve ever faced,” ticking off a list that included the coronavirus, the economy, racial-justice issues and “historic and punishing wildfires and storms.”

Biden had promised to end on “Day 1” a program that requires tens of thousands of asylum seekers, mainly from Central America, to await their U.S. immigration hearings in Mexico. But the president-elect said creating a system to process thousands of asylum seekers will take months, because the government needs funding to put staffers such as “asylum judges” in place.

Here is the full article, WWGJS!?  He would say “The median voter theorem remains underrated!”

Further adventures in median voter land, GOP Omnibus edition

by  Tyler Cowen in

GOP House

GOP Senate

GOP White House

Planned Parenthood still getting $500 million in taxpayer funding

That is from a tweet by Peter J Hasson.  One of the most underreported and insidious forms of media bias is underestimation of the median voter theorem.  Unlike many forms of media bias, partisans on neither side have an incentive to reveal this one.  It really does make a lot of political struggles much less interesting and dramatic.  Here is my earlier post on “Three Word Explanations.”

An Israeli median voter theorem? (model this war)

by  Tyler Cowen in

…on July 13, about four days before the actual incursion began, about 67 percent of Israelis supported a ground operation. By authorizing one, Netanyahu has given the public what it has demanded.

That is from Brent Sasley.

Fred Kaplan wonders whether Israel has lost its ability to think strategically.  Even Max Boot seems to think Hamas will stay in charge of Gaza.

Or is the fear that even intercepted Hamas rockets will in the long run spur too much Israeli emigration?  Are the economics of long-run rocket/shoot-down reciprocity unacceptable to Israel?

A friend of mine suggests that Israel feels the need to send a tough signal to Iran.

Or all of the above?

I am by the way not impressed by various Twitter demands that I should spend more time moralizing about this conflict.  I do think it is deontologically wrong on the part of the Israelis, and I also do not understand their strategy from even a purely nationalistic point of view.  But my voice will have no influence, and I would rather learn something from the comments section about why such strategies are being pursued.  Call me selfish if you wish, I am.

The median voter theorem, in action

by  Tyler Cowen in

Whoops:

Steven Chu, the Nobel laureate scientist who is President-elect Obama’s choice to be energy secretary, said in testimony prepared for his Senate confirmation hearing Tuesday that high oil prices were a threat to the economy, backing away slightly from statements made in his last job, as director of the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, that gasoline prices should be higher.

Here is the story.  Technically speaking, all of his words are correct and do not contradict each other.  Still, if he can't get appointed for favoring higher gas prices, and in a honeymoon period at that…well…you see where this is headed.

The median voter theorem

by  Tyler Cowen in

John A. Courson, chief operating officer of the Mortgage Bankers
Association, a trade group, also pointed with relief to the statement
by the Treasury secretary, Henry M. Paulson Jr. on Sunday morning that Fannie and Freddie would examine the fees they
charge banks for loan securitization services, “with an eye toward
mortgage affordability.”

Don’t they…um…"need the money"?  And:

“The government doesn’t have a great deal of interest in foreclosing on
a ton of homes,” said Kurt Eggert, a law professor at Chapman
University in Orange, Calif., and a former member of the Federal
Reserve Board’s Consumer Advisory Council.

And:

While it is not yet clear whether stockholders in Fannie Mae and
Freddie Mac will be wiped out entirely, Mr. Paulson did say on Sunday
that the entities “will no longer be managed with a strategy to
maximize common shareholder returns.”

That’s some theorem.  Here is the article.

Trump voters are fairly well off

by  Tyler Cowen

Trump voters’ median income exceeded the overall statewide median in all 23 states, sometimes narrowly (as in New Hampshire or Missouri) but sometimes substantially. In Florida, for instance, the median household income for Trump voters was about $70,000, compared with $48,000 for the state as a whole. The differences are usually larger in states with substantial non-white populations, as black and Hispanic voters are overwhelmingly Democratic and tend to have lower incomes. In South Carolina, for example, the median Trump supporter had a household income of $72,000, while the median for Clinton supporters was $39,000.

Furthermore:

However, while Republican turnout has considerably increased overall from four years ago, there’s no sign of a particularly heavy turnout among “working-class” or lower-income Republicans. On average in states where exit polls were conducted both this year and in the Republican campaign four years ago, 29 percent of GOP voters have had household incomes below $50,000 this year, compared with 31 percent in 2012.

About 44 percent of Trump supporters have a college degree, compared to 29 percent for the nation as a whole.

That is from Nate Silver, by the way here is my conversation with Nate, transcript, audio, and video at the link.

Median-itis and The Great Stagnation

by  Tyler Cowen in

Here is my NYT column from today, on themes relevant to The Great Stagnation.  I won't rehash this entire discussion, but I would like to focus on this one column excerpt:

From 1947 to 1973 – a period of just 26 years – inflation-adjusted median income in the United States more than doubled. But in the 31 years from 1973 to 2004, it rose only 22 percent. And, over the last decade, it actually declined.

I am noticing that some reviews or commentaries (and here) are citing per capita income growth as a response to my argument.  It is true that per capita income grows at a slower rate post-1973, but my argument is about the slowing down of median income growth and that is a much stronger shift.  The productivity data also tell a glum story.   

CPI bias can change those numbers in absolute terms (see comments from Russ Roberts), but it also changes the pre-1973 median income growth numbers and arguably more so.  The gap remains and TGS refers to the living standard for the average person or household in the United States, not the total amount of innovation, which remains quite high.  They're just not innovations with the same trickle-down or broad-based effects as in an earlier era.

Kindle eBooks are themselves a good example.  It's a real improvement for a lot of us — especially travelers – but even the median reader, much less the median American, doesn't have a Kindle or buy eBooks.  As I argued in The Age of the Infovore, the big gains of late have gone to the extreme information-processors.  

I've seen in the MR comments (and elsewhere) a lot of anecdotal comparison of recent gains vs. earlier gains in technology.  Don't we now have this, don't we now have that, and so on.  Of course.  Median incomes have risen somewhat.  But, when it comes to the average household, the published numbers for median income are adding up and trying to measure those gains and it turns out their recent rate of growth really has declined.  Most serious researchers who work in this area use and accept these numbers as the best available (though they do not in general advocate my causal interpretation; see for instance Mark Thoma or Jacob Hacker).  

If the numbers for median income growth are low we ought to take that seriously, as does Scott Sumner.  We are not cheerleaders per se (BC: "I'm baffled why Tyler would focus on slight declines in American growth when the world just had the best decade ever."  Is it then wrong to focus on any other problems at all?  I also was one of the first people to make the "best decade ever" argument, which I still accept.)  Medians also matter for the political climate, even though the median earner is not exactly the median voter.  Adam Smith's welfare economics was basically that of the median, a point which David Levy has made repeatedly.

I'm also being called a "pessimist" a lot.  Yet in my view our current technological plateau won't last forever.  That's probably more optimistic than the Hacker-Pierson approach, which requires a Progressive revolution in economic policy (unlikely), although it is not more optimistic than denying the relevance of the numbers.

I'll soon blog some remarks on changing household size as another attempt to avoid confronting the facts about slow median income growth.