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What does the Build Back Better Framework mean for BIPOC communities?

On Oct. 28, President Joe Biden presented his Build Back Better Framework (BBB), a guide for legislative language for several proposals in his $1.75 trillion spending plan. Collectively, the proposal aims to “set the United States on course to meet…

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By Kristen E. Broady, Camille Busette, Tonantzin Carmona, Keon L. Gilbert, Carlos Martín, Robert Maxim, Andre M. Perry, Rashawn Ray, Gabriel R. Sanchez

On Oct. 28, President Joe Biden presented his Build Back Better Framework (BBB), a guide for legislative language for several proposals in his $1.75 trillion spending plan. Collectively, the proposal aims to “set the United States on course to meet its climate goals, create millions of good-paying jobs, enable more Americans to join and remain in the labor force, and grow our economy from the bottom up and the middle out.” If passed by the House and Senate, it will be one of the largest investments ever in working-class Americans—a group that was already reeling before COVID-19, and one that has endured even greater adversity since the pandemic began.

In the wake of 2020’s summer of racial unrest—spurred by protests in the aftermath of George Floyd’s murder—Biden made addressing systemic racism a central feature of his candidacy on the campaign trail. While the Build Back Better plan is ambitious in scope, does it redress many of the racial equity issues that he campaigned on? In other words, what does BBB mean for Black, Indigenous, Latino, and Asian communities?

We asked a group of Brookings scholars who are focused on domestic policy to provide their immediate reactions to different aspects of the plan.

Building Back Better for HBCUs and MSIs.

Kristen Broady — Fellow in the Metropolitan Policy Program: The benefits of higher education are well established, but these benefits come with explicit and implicit costs. Options for paying tuition and fees include paying from personal or parental income, scholarships, grants, and loans. The Federal Pell Grant Program provides need-based grants to low-income undergraduate students. BBB will increase the maximum Pell Grant by $550 for the more than 5 million students enrolled in public and private, nonprofit colleges, as well as expand access to DREAMers. While only a slight variation exists with respect to the average amount of Pell Grant aid awarded to first-time full-time students at historically Black colleges and universities (HBCUs) and predominantly white institutions, a greater proportion of HBCU students receive Pell Grants. More than 75% of undergraduate HBCU students rely on Pell Grants to pay for college expenses, compared to 39% of all U.S. undergraduate students who use Pell Grants to help cover the costs of their college education. Hence, the BBB framework will benefit HBCUs that have been historically underfunded yet have persisted in providing African American students with the best mechanism—and for some, the only opportunity—to receive a collegiate education.

Before the COVID-19 pandemic began, the higher education sector had experienced a decrease of 1.3 million students since its enrollment peak in 2010. The pandemic worsened the enrollment situation, as many colleges and universities moved courses online in fall 2020. With increased costs of technology for online learning and revenue losses from cancelled sporting events, decreases in room and board revenue, and auxiliary services declines, the pandemic cost higher ed institutions billions. The costs of overcoming the challenges of the pandemic were high for the majority of colleges and universities, but particularly for HBCUs and other minority-serving institutions considering their lower endowments and lower core revenues. BBB will make historic investments in HBCUs, Tribal colleges and universities, and minority-serving institutions (MSIs) to build capacity, modernize research infrastructure, and provide much needed financial aid to low-income students. The well-preserved intentions of these institutions since their founding has been to provide African Americans and other minority groups with a seat at the proverbial table of higher education and to make possible life-altering opportunities beneficial for their families and communities.

BBB leaves (almost) no one behind.

Camille Busette — Senior Fellow and Director of the Race, Prosperity, and Inclusion Initiative: The Biden administration’s Build Back Better Framework tackles poverty, inequities in health-care access, and makes some important investments in affordable housing, child care, pre-K, climate change, and environmental justice that could change the economic mobility picture for millions of low-income families and families of color. These investments and supports center on dignifying and creating cumulative paths of opportunity for the tens of millions of Americans who have consistently been left behind over the last seven decades of American domestic policy.

Almost everyone is included in these proposals—except for returning citizens, who in the U.S. are disproportionately male and Black. Black men have been disproportionately incarcerated both before and during the highly problematic War on Drugs. Many of these men are young and are the products of the challenges that the Build Back Better Framework seeks to ameliorate. While it’s important to be forward looking in policy, we also need to create a path to economic and physical well-being for our returning citizens.

A step in the right direction, but more work is needed to achieve an equitable economy.

Tonantzin Carmona — David M. Rubenstein Fellow in the Metropolitan Policy Program: The Build Back Better debate raises important questions, including: Is American wealth distributed equitably? In 2019, the 400 richest Americans held more wealth than all 10 million Black households and a quarter of Latino households combined. The racial wealth gap is a result of policy decisions that led to the extraction of wealth from Black and other households of color over generations, and of a tax code that advantages the wealthy and corporations. While the Build Back Better Framework contains a new minimum tax on corporate profit and the new surtax on multi-millionaires and billionaires, it does not include bolder fiscal tools or economic policies that challenge the status quo, such as a wealth tax, baby bonds, reparations, or student loan forgiveness.

However, the framework does aim to rectify wrongs through its tax system. The Child Tax Credit (CTC), for example, would make its full refundability permanent. Before the American Rescue Plan, roughly half of all Black and Latinx children did not receive the full CTC due to the family’s low income, excluding families who needed it the most. If implemented, this change would be an impactful driver of poverty reduction. Additionally, investments in the IRS would improve fairness in the tax enforcement system. This would correct for the richest 1% of Americans evading $160 billion in taxes every year, while the IRS’s audits disproportionately targeted low-income people of color.

BBB is certainly a step in the right direction, but it is a reminder that more work needs to be done to achieve an equitable economy. The tax code can be a powerful tool; we should not be afraid to use it.

The Biden administration chips away at racial and ethnic disparities in health care.

Keon L. Gilbert — David M. Rubenstein Fellow in Governance Studies: The Biden-Harris administration has identified racial equity as a key priority, with health equity being a main focus of that agenda. The Build Back Better Framework seeks to expand health-care access to 4 million uninsured adults by expanding the Premium Tax Credit. Recent reports from the CDC document a rise in the uninsured. In 2014, health-care coverage became closer to a reality for many American adults. The Affordable Care Act, with the opening of the Medicaid and marketplace coverage expansions, helped expand coverage for close to all adults at or below 138% of poverty (in states that expanded Medicaid) and offered tax credits to those with incomes up to 400% poverty could purchase insurance through the marketplace, according to KFF. Insurance coverage has increased across racial and ethnic groups. However, many non-elderly Black, American Indian and Alaska Native, and Hispanic adults remain more likely than their white counterparts to be without coverage.

The first half of 2021 revealed that 9.9% of adults aged 19 to 64 were uninsured, a finding that highlighted how insurance coverage gains actually deepened during the COVID-19 pandemic; compare this to uninsured rates of up to 13.4% in early 2020 and 11.1% in 2019. Six percent of adults reported losing employer-based insurance when they lost their jobs during the pandemic, though 67% of those obtained coverage elsewhere. Many Americans with and without health coverage continue to struggle paying for insurance and other health-related costs such as medical bills. Survey data identified a recurring issue with medical debt. Americans depleted their savings, delayed education or career plans, and added debt to manage medical bills. The result of these decisions has led many of them to be unable to meet basic daily needs. History has documented that the inability to meet basic needs will increase risks for chronic diseases, delay preventative care, and people will not be able to identify time nor have resources to engage in healthy behavior change. Health-care coverage has to be linked to social and economic policies—not only to save dollars in health-care spending, but to provide access to health-promoting resources that will mitigate risks for the onset or severity of the leading causes of death. The 12 states that have yet to expand Medicaid also have high concentrations of inequities in health and are ranked at the bottom of national rankings.

BBB (and BIF) plant a few hardy seeds for environmental and energy equity, but they will need tending.

Carlos Martín — David M. Rubenstein Fellow in the Metropolitan Policy Program: BBB, coupled with the Bipartisan Infrastructure Framework (BIF), presents a historic investment toward Americans’ transition away from fossil fuels and for investing in communities that suffer the most from our previous fossil fuel reliance. They include a wide range of potential benefits for communities of color in the form of state and local energy assistance grants, clean energy incubators, training disadvantaged workers, aid to environmental justice programs, and increasing Superfund remediation, to name a few benefits that have specific allocations for underserved communities. But spending the bulk of the resources in the right places—and in ways that historically underserved and over-extracted communities can tap—is a work in progress.

The biggest piece is BBB’s $550 billion for climate-related policy and programs, including tax credits for companies and consumers of electric vehicles, solar panels, energy retrofits, and a range of other climate-positive actions. For example, almost $6 billion is allocated for home-efficiency energy credits and slightly more for building electrification, with higher credits for lower-income communities. For low-income and communities of color, energy tax credits (as opposed to direct aid) have usually not been successful for a range of reasons, not the least of which is the amount of money needed up front coupled with the wait for credits to materialize. The BBB corrects some of this by giving homeowners an immediate rebate that then transfers to an energy remodeler, who even gets a bonus for working in underserved communities. Yet implementation is the usual challenge that legislation rarely discusses, and communities of color often fall through the cracks of outreach campaigns, application processes, approvals, and ultimately insufficient dollars for their individual energy remodeling needs—especially for renters that pay their own utilities. The BBB also increases low-income weatherization grants for some of these folks that traditionally get left behind with $3.5 billion. Yet, the lessons from the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act’s $5 billion for the same program have yet to be fully learned.

These voluntary, household-focused programs are certainly positive, but they dance around the structural powers—such as the utilities and land developers and permitting authorities—that perpetuate injustice and are the arbiters of emissions of greenhouse gasses and other human hazards. The Biden White House launched the program and budgetary guidance known as Justice40 early in its administration—a requirement that 40% of the overall benefits of relevant federal investments go to disadvantaged communities. The guidance is occasionally echoed in the BBB and BIF, but it should more rigorously be upheld and specified in the allocation, engagement, and local TA–not just for the explicit physical investments from the $1 trillion BIF, but also the rule implementations, competitive grant awards, household incentives, and regulatory enforcements in the $1.75 trillion BBB.

After all, the environmental manifestations of racism, wealth disparity, and other discrimination are deeply rooted. Replanting the orchard is in order.

Build Back Better contains important investments for Native communities, but more still needs to be done.

Robert Maxim — Senior Research Associate in the Metropolitan Policy Program: The Build Back Better Framework makes essential—if still incomplete—investments benefitting Tribal Nations and Indigenous Peoples. In particular, the framework’s investments in combatting the climate crisis are necessary for the well-being of Native communities. Recent research has confirmed what Native voices have long said—that because of the lingering effects of U.S. land theft and forced relocation, today Native people live in areas that are among the most exposed to the effects of climate change.

Other components of the Build Back Better framework will have important benefits for Tribal Nations and Indigenous Peoples. The framework’s investments in housing are desperately needed: Native households in Tribal areas experience overcrowding at rates eight times the national average, and Tribal areas faced an estimated shortfall of 68,000 housing units. And BBB’s health-care expansion will benefit Native people, who, despite U.S. government treaties promising health care for Tribal citizens, still face uninsured rates higher than any other ethnic group. The framework’s Rural Partnership Program will support rurally based Tribal Nations in meeting the economic and human needs of their citizens. And the framework makes important investments to increase financial aid, support student retention and completion, and improve research and development infrastructure at Tribal Colleges and Universities and other minority-serving institutions that serve Native students.

The Build Back Better Act marked up in the House in September contained an array of specific provisions for Tribal Nations, ranging from Tribal electrification to Tribal public safety. It remains to be seen how many of those make it into this final package. In this regard, while the Build Back Better Framework is a necessary investment, it will not by itself be a sufficient one. Many of the challenges that Indigenous Peoples face today are the direct result of U.S. government actions, and it is necessary that the U.S. government begin rectifying those past policy decisions. The Build Back Better Framework is an important first step in doing so—but it cannot be the last.

Investments in early education are good, but families are still vulnerable outside of schools.

Andre M. Perry — Senior Fellow in the Metropolitan Policy Program:

Early child care is as basic as a K-12 education and higher education for individual and societal wellness. However, rising costs in education, particularly for early child-care services, have made essential goods a luxury. From 1972 to 2007, spending on child care increased by 2000%, clearly outpacing inflation and wage growth. As a result, too many low-income families (primarily women) are forced out of the labor market to take care of their children. And, many working-class families in low-paying jobs are limited to substandard options. While this is an issue for all racial groups, Black and Hispanic families are much more likely to have to make these kinds of choices. The poverty rate in 2019 for Black and Hispanic families was 18.8% and 15.7%, respectively, compared to 7.3% for Asian and non-Hispanic whites, according to Census Data.

Because Black and Hispanic families are more likely to be poor, more as a proportion of those respective populations stand to benefit.

Combined with the increase in the Child Tax Credit for families with low or no income for children ages 6 to 17 and $3,600 for children under age 6, implementation of this framework will put money into parents’ pockets while reducing costs for early child-care services. Few will argue that this isn’t materially and symbolically good for people of color. The Build Back Better Framework addresses the resource gap that is strongly correlated with educational disparities. For too long, the achievement gap has been associated with a lack of work ethic, bad teachers, and schools. The Build Back Better Framework offers to ameliorate the racial achievement gap, which decades of education reform have laid blamed on teachers and school districts.

However, it’s what’s not in the framework that BIPOC communities must be concerned about. Kids don’t live in schools; they live in neighborhoods. The lack of voter protection and criminal justice legislation will mitigate educational investments. In addition, the Biden administration has yet to cancel student debt, which disproportionately impacts Black and Brown people and neighborhoods. Moreover, BBB’s focus on addressing income disparities and not the wealth gap, which sees white families have 10 and eight times the net worth of Black and Latino families, respectively, neglects the structural racism that created it.

Affordable housing policy is essential.

Rashawn Ray — Senior Fellow in Governance Studies: Home sales have inflated exponentially over the past decade. And yet, it pales in comparison to the rental market. During the first half of 2021, rent increased over 9% across the country. Some of this pattern is coupled with housing prices more broadly. From April 2020 through April 2021, home prices increased the most over a 12-month period compared to any period over the past 30 years. Monthly rent has increased over $150 in Atlanta, nearly $350 in Ontario, California, and roughly $100 in Dallas and Philadelphia. And, the New York Fed predicts even greater rent increases into 2022.

In Nashville, a two-bedroom apartment is nearly $1,600 a month. The minimum wage in Tennessee is $7.25, which is considered poverty wages. Tennessee has the most minimum-wage workers among all states. Some of the poverty is concentrated in the historic Jefferson Street corridor, which was once a thriving Black middle-class area. Though its HBCUs still continue on, the local community has faltered. This is why President Biden’s inclusion into the infrastructure bill of funding to restore Black communities destroyed by highway construction is so essential.

Likewise, affordable housing legislation must commence. Black people are more likely to work in low-wage jobs and live in areas susceptible to abrupt rent increases. In a study of COVID-19 in Detroit, Black residents were seven times more likely to be very concerned about being evicted and 17 times more likely than white residents to report needing rent assistance. In Nashville, Councilman Brandon Taylor proposed legislation to force landlords to give tenants at least a 90-day notice of rent increases, but the bill has yet to pass. Biden’s plan to provide housing vouchers for renters and down-payment assistance for first-time homebuyers can help. Without these safety nets, a growing number of Americans will continue to be shut out of the American dream—which is turning into an American nightmare even beyond the pandemic.

To help Latinos, we need a subtitle for consistency.

Gabriel R. Sanchez — David M. Rubenstein Fellow in Governance Studies: The Build Back Better Framework as currently written offers access to free preschool for all 3- and 4-year old children, providing Latino parents access to high-quality programs in the setting of their choice–from public schools to child-care providers to Head Start. This policy will improve the economic and overall well-being of the Latino community for generations to come.

BBB will also significantly expand access to affordable health care for all Americans. This is particularly important for Latino Americans, who have consistently had a larger segment of their population who lack health insurance. For example, almost 10.9 million Hispanic people were uninsured in 2019 before President Biden took office, and—as we have written about previously–the cost of health care was highly salient to Latino voters in 2020, so this policy will directly respond to the Latino electorate who spoke loudly in 2020 about their need for affordable health care. This aspect of the larger law is particularly timely for Latinos given that the African American Research Collaborative/Commonwealth Fund American COVID-19 Vaccine Poll identified that 12% of Latino adults have lost their health insurance due to the pandemic.

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Mistakes Were Made

Mistakes Were Made

Authored by C.J.Hopkins via The Consent Factory,

Make fun of the Germans all you want, and I’ve certainly done that…

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March 17, 2024

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Mistakes Were Made

Authored by C.J.Hopkins via The Consent Factory,

Make fun of the Germans all you want, and I’ve certainly done that a bit during these past few years, but, if there’s one thing they’re exceptionally good at, it’s taking responsibility for their mistakes. Seriously, when it comes to acknowledging one’s mistakes, and not rationalizing, or minimizing, or attempting to deny them, and any discomfort they may have allegedly caused, no one does it quite like the Germans.

Take this Covid mess, for example. Just last week, the German authorities confessed that they made a few minor mistakes during their management of the “Covid pandemic.” According to Karl Lauterbach, the Minister of Health, “we were sometimes too strict with the children and probably started easing the restrictions a little too late.” Horst Seehofer, the former Interior Minister, admitted that he would no longer agree to some of the Covid restrictions today, for example, nationwide nighttime curfews. “One must be very careful with calls for compulsory vaccination,” he added. Helge Braun, Head of the Chancellery and Minister for Special Affairs under Merkel, agreed that there had been “misjudgments,” for example, “overestimating the effectiveness of the vaccines.”

This display of the German authorities’ unwavering commitment to transparency and honesty, and the principle of personal honor that guides the German authorities in all their affairs, and that is deeply ingrained in the German character, was published in a piece called “The Divisive Virus” in Der Spiegel, and immediately widely disseminated by the rest of the German state and corporate media in a totally organic manner which did not in any way resemble one enormous Goebbelsian keyboard instrument pumping out official propaganda in perfect synchronization, or anything creepy and fascistic like that.

Germany, after all, is “an extremely democratic state,” with freedom of speech and the press and all that, not some kind of totalitarian country where the masses are inundated with official propaganda and critics of the government are dragged into criminal court and prosecuted on trumped-up “hate crime” charges.

OK, sure, in a non-democratic totalitarian system, such public “admissions of mistakes” — and the synchronized dissemination thereof by the media — would just be a part of the process of whitewashing the authorities’ fascistic behavior during some particularly totalitarian phase of transforming society into whatever totalitarian dystopia they were trying to transform it into (for example, a three-year-long “state of emergency,” which they declared to keep the masses terrorized and cooperative while they stripped them of their democratic rights, i.e., the ones they hadn’t already stripped them of, and conditioned them to mindlessly follow orders, and robotically repeat nonsensical official slogans, and vent their impotent hatred and fear at the new “Untermenschen” or “counter-revolutionaries”), but that is obviously not the case here.

No, this is definitely not the German authorities staging a public “accountability” spectacle in order to memory-hole what happened during 2020-2023 and enshrine the official narrative in history. There’s going to be a formal “Inquiry Commission” — conducted by the same German authorities that managed the “crisis” — which will get to the bottom of all the regrettable but completely understandable “mistakes” that were made in the heat of the heroic battle against The Divisive Virus!

OK, calm down, all you “conspiracy theorists,” “Covid deniers,” and “anti-vaxxers.” This isn’t going to be like the Nuremberg Trials. No one is going to get taken out and hanged. It’s about identifying and acknowledging mistakes, and learning from them, so that the authorities can manage everything better during the next “pandemic,” or “climate emergency,” or “terrorist attack,” or “insurrection,” or whatever.

For example, the Inquiry Commission will want to look into how the government accidentally declared a Nationwide State of Pandemic Emergency and revised the Infection Protection Act, suspending the German constitution and granting the government the power to rule by decree, on account of a respiratory virus that clearly posed no threat to society at large, and then unleashed police goon squads on the thousands of people who gathered outside the Reichstag to protest the revocation of their constitutional rights.

Once they do, I’m sure they’ll find that that “mistake” bears absolutely no resemblance to the Enabling Act of 1933, which suspended the German constitution and granted the government the power to rule by decree, after the Nazis declared a nationwide “state of emergency.”

Another thing the Commission will probably want to look into is how the German authorities accidentally banned any further demonstrations against their arbitrary decrees, and ordered the police to brutalize anyone participating in such “illegal demonstrations.”

And, while the Commission is inquiring into the possibly slightly inappropriate behavior of their law enforcement officials, they might want to also take a look at the behavior of their unofficial goon squads, like Antifa, which they accidentally encouraged to attack the “anti-vaxxers,” the “Covid deniers,” and anyone brandishing a copy of the German constitution.

Come to think of it, the Inquiry Commission might also want to look into how the German authorities, and the overwhelming majority of the state and corporate media, accidentally systematically fomented mass hatred of anyone who dared to question the government’s arbitrary and nonsensical decrees or who refused to submit to “vaccination,” and publicly demonized us as “Corona deniers,” “conspiracy theorists,” “anti-vaxxers,” “far-right anti-Semites,” etc., to the point where mainstream German celebrities like Sarah Bosetti were literally describing us as the inessential “appendix” in the body of the nation, quoting an infamous Nazi almost verbatim.

And then there’s the whole “vaccination” business. The Commission will certainly want to inquire into that. They will probably want to start their inquiry with Karl Lauterbach, and determine exactly how he accidentally lied to the public, over and over, and over again …

And whipped people up into a mass hysteria over “KILLER VARIANTS” …

And “LONG COVID BRAIN ATTACKS” …

And how “THE UNVACCINATED ARE HOLDING THE WHOLE COUNTRY HOSTAGE, SO WE NEED TO FORCIBLY VACCINATE EVERYONE!”

And so on. I could go on with this all day, but it will be much easier to just refer you, and the Commission, to this documentary film by Aya Velázquez. Non-German readers may want to skip to the second half, unless they’re interested in the German “Corona Expert Council” …

Look, the point is, everybody makes “mistakes,” especially during a “state of emergency,” or a war, or some other type of global “crisis.” At least we can always count on the Germans to step up and take responsibility for theirs, and not claim that they didn’t know what was happening, or that they were “just following orders,” or that “the science changed.”

Plus, all this Covid stuff is ancient history, and, as Olaf, an editor at Der Spiegel, reminds us, it’s time to put the “The Divisive Pandemic” behind us …

… and click heels, and heil the New Normal Democracy!

Tyler Durden Sat, 03/16/2024 - 23:20

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“Extreme Events”: US Cancer Deaths Spiked In 2021 And 2022 In “Large Excess Over Trend”

"Extreme Events": US Cancer Deaths Spiked In 2021 And 2022 In "Large Excess Over Trend"

Cancer deaths in the United States spiked in 2021…

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March 16, 2024

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"Extreme Events": US Cancer Deaths Spiked In 2021 And 2022 In "Large Excess Over Trend"

Cancer deaths in the United States spiked in 2021 and 2022 among 15-44 year-olds "in large excess over trend," marking jumps of 5.6% and 7.9% respectively vs. a rise of 1.7% in 2020, according to a new preprint study from deep-dive research firm, Phinance Technologies.

Algeria, Carlos et. al "US -Death Trends for Neoplasms ICD codes: C00-D48, Ages 15-44", ResearchGate, March. 2024 P. 7

Extreme Events

The report, which relies on data from the CDC, paints a troubling picture.

"We show a rise in excess mortality from neoplasms reported as underlying cause of death, which started in 2020 (1.7%) and accelerated substantially in 2021 (5.6%) and 2022 (7.9%). The increase in excess mortality in both 2021 (Z-score of 11.8) and 2022 (Z-score of 16.5) are highly statistically significant (extreme events)," according to the authors.

That said, co-author, David Wiseman, PhD (who has 86 publications to his name), leaves the cause an open question - suggesting it could either be a "novel phenomenon," Covid-19, or the Covid-19 vaccine.

"The results indicate that from 2021 a novel phenomenon leading to increased neoplasm deaths appears to be present in individuals aged 15 to 44 in the US," reads the report.

The authors suggest that the cause may be the result of "an unexpected rise in the incidence of rapidly growing fatal cancers," and/or "a reduction in survival in existing cancer cases."

They also address the possibility that "access to utilization of cancer screening and treatment" may be a factor - the notion that pandemic-era lockdowns resulted in fewer visits to the doctor. Also noted is that "Cancers tend to be slowly-developing diseases with remarkably stable death rates and only small variations over time," which makes "any temporal association between a possible explanatory factor (such as COVID-19, the novel COVID-19 vaccines, or other factor(s)) difficult to establish."

That said, a ZeroHedge review of the CDC data reveals that it does not provide information on duration of illness prior to death - so while it's not mentioned in the preprint, it can't rule out so-called 'turbo cancers' - reportedly rapidly developing cancers, the existence of which has been largely anecdotal (and widely refuted by the usual suspects).

While the Phinance report is extremely careful not to draw conclusions, researcher "Ethical Skeptic" kicked the barn door open in a Thursday post on X - showing a strong correlation between "cancer incidence & mortality" coinciding with the rollout of the Covid mRNA vaccine.

Phinance principal Ed Dowd commented on the post, noting that "Cancer is suddenly an accelerating growth industry!"

Continued:

Bottom line - hard data is showing alarming trends, which the CDC and other agencies have a requirement to explore and answer truthfully - and people are asking #WhereIsTheCDC.

We aren't holding our breath.

Wiseman, meanwhile, points out that Pfizer and several other companies are making "significant investments in cancer drugs, post COVID."

Phinance

We've featured several of Phinance's self-funded deep dives into pandemic data that nobody else is doing. If you'd like to support them, click here.

 

Tyler Durden Sat, 03/16/2024 - 16:55

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Gen Z, The Most Pessimistic Generation In History, May Decide The Election

Gen Z, The Most Pessimistic Generation In History, May Decide The Election

Authored by Mike Shedlock via MishTalk.com,

Young adults are more…

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1 day ago

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March 16, 2024

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Gen Z, The Most Pessimistic Generation In History, May Decide The Election

Authored by Mike Shedlock via MishTalk.com,

Young adults are more skeptical of government and pessimistic about the future than any living generation before them.

This is with reason, and it’s likely to decide the election.

Rough Years and the Most Pessimism Ever

The Wall Street Journal has an interesting article on The Rough Years That Turned Gen Z Into America’s Most Disillusioned Voters.

Young adults in Generation Z—those born in 1997 or after—have emerged from the pandemic feeling more disillusioned than any living generation before them, according to long-running surveys and interviews with dozens of young people around the country. They worry they’ll never make enough money to attain the security previous generations have achieved, citing their delayed launch into adulthood, an impenetrable housing market and loads of student debt.

And they’re fed up with policymakers from both parties.

Washington is moving closer to passing legislation that would ban or force the sale of TikTok, a platform beloved by millions of young people in the U.S. Several young people interviewed by The Wall Street Journal said they spend hours each day on the app and use it as their main source of news.

“It’s funny how they quickly pass this bill about this TikTok situation. What about schools that are getting shot up? We’re not going to pass a bill about that?” Gaddie asked. “No, we’re going to worry about TikTok and that just shows you where their head is…. I feel like they don’t really care about what’s going on with humanity.”

Gen Z’s widespread gloominess is manifesting in unparalleled skepticism of Washington and a feeling of despair that leaders of either party can help. Young Americans’ entire political memories are subsumed by intense partisanship and warnings about the looming end of everything from U.S. democracy to the planet. When the darkest days of the pandemic started to end, inflation reached 40-year highs. The right to an abortion was overturned. Wars in Ukraine and the Middle East raged.

Dissatisfaction is pushing some young voters to third-party candidates in this year’s presidential race and causing others to consider staying home on Election Day or leaving the top of the ticket blank. While young people typically vote at lower rates, a small number of Gen Z voters could make the difference in the election, which four years ago was decided by tens of thousands of votes in several swing states.

Roughly 41 million Gen Z Americans—ages 18 to 27—will be eligible to vote this year, according to Tufts University.

Gen Z is among the most liberal segments of the electorate, according to surveys, but recent polling shows them favoring Biden by only a slim margin. Some are unmoved by those who warn that a vote against Biden is effectively a vote for Trump, arguing that isn’t enough to earn their support.

Confidence

When asked if they had confidence in a range of public institutions, Gen Z’s faith in them was generally below that of the older cohorts at the same point in their lives. 

One-third of Gen Z Americans described themselves as conservative, according to NORC’s 2022 General Social Survey. That is a larger share identifying as conservative than when millennials, Gen X and baby boomers took the survey when they were the same age, though some of the differences were small and within the survey’s margin of error.

More young people now say they find it hard to have hope for the world than at any time since at least 1976, according to a University of Michigan survey that has tracked public sentiment among 12th-graders for nearly five decades. Young people today are less optimistic than any generation in decades that they’ll get a professional job or surpass the success of their parents, the long-running survey has found. They increasingly believe the system is stacked against them and support major changes to the way the country operates.

Gen Z future Outcome

“It’s the starkest difference I’ve documented in 20 years of doing this research,” said Twenge, the author of the book “Generations.” The pandemic, she said, amplified trends among Gen Z that have existed for years: chronic isolation, a lack of social interaction and a propensity to spend large amounts of time online.

A 2020 study found past epidemics have left a lasting impression on young people around the world, creating a lack of confidence in political institutions and their leaders. The study, which analyzed decades of Gallup World polling from dozens of countries, found the decline in trust among young people typically persists for two decades.

Young people are more likely than older voters to have a pessimistic view of the economy and disapprove of Biden’s handling of inflation, according to the recent Journal poll. Among people under 30, Biden leads Trump by 3 percentage points, 35% to 32%, with 14% undecided and the remaining shares going to third-party candidates, including 10% to independent Robert F. Kennedy Jr.

Economic Reality

Gen Z may be the first generation in US history that is not better off than their parents.

Many have given up on the idea they will ever be able to afford a home.

The economy is allegedly booming (I disagree). Regardless, stress over debt is high with younger millennials and zoomers.

This has been a constant theme of mine for many months.

Credit Card and Auto Delinquencies Soar

Credit card debt surged to a record high in the fourth quarter. Even more troubling is a steep climb in 90 day or longer delinquencies.

Record High Credit Card Debt

Credit card debt rose to a new record high of $1.13 trillion, up $50 billion in the quarter. Even more troubling is the surge in serious delinquencies, defined as 90 days or more past due.

For nearly all age groups, serious delinquencies are the highest since 2011.

Auto Loan Delinquencies

Serious delinquencies on auto loans have jumped from under 3 percent in mid-2021 to to 5 percent at the end of 2023 for age group 18-29.Age group 30-39 is also troubling. Serious delinquencies for age groups 18-29 and 30-39 are at the highest levels since 2010.

For further discussion please see Credit Card and Auto Delinquencies Soar, Especially Age Group 18 to 39

Generational Homeownership Rates

Home ownership rates courtesy of Apartment List

The above chart is from the Apartment List’s 2023 Millennial Homeownership Report

Those struggling with rent are more likely to be Millennials and Zoomers than Generation X, Baby Boomers, or members of the Silent Generation.

The same age groups struggling with credit card and auto delinquencies.

On Average Everything is Great

Average it up, and things look pretty good. This is why we have seen countless stories attempting to explain why people should be happy.

Krugman Blames Partisanship

OK, there is a fair amount of partisanship in the polls.

However, Biden isn’t struggling from partisanship alone. If that was the reason, Biden would not be polling so miserably with Democrats in general, blacks, and younger voters.

OK, there is a fair amount of partisanship in the polls.

However, Biden isn’t struggling from partisanship alone. If that was the reason, Biden would not be polling so miserably with Democrats in general, blacks, and younger voters.

This allegedly booming economy left behind the renters and everyone under the age of 40 struggling to make ends meet.

Many Are Addicted to “Buy Now, Pay Later” Plans

Buy Now Pay Later, BNPL, plans are increasingly popular. It’s another sign of consumer credit stress.

For discussion, please see Many Are Addicted to “Buy Now, Pay Later” Plans, It’s a Big Trap

The study did not break things down by home owners vs renters, but I strongly suspect most of the BNPL use is by renters.

What About Jobs?

Another seemingly strong jobs headline falls apart on closer scrutiny. The massive divergence between jobs and employment continued into February.

Nonfarm payrolls and employment levels from the BLS, chart by Mish.

Payrolls vs Employment Gains Since March 2023

  • Nonfarm Payrolls: 2,602,000

  • Employment Level: +144,000

  • Full Time Employment: -284,000

For more details of the weakening labor markets, please see Jobs Up 275,000 Employment Down 184,000

CPI Hot Again

CPI Data from the BLS, chart by Mish.

For discussion of the CPI inflation data for February, please see CPI Hot Again, Rent Up at Least 0.4 Percent for 30 Straight Months

Also note the Producer Price Index (PPI) Much Hotter Than Expected in February

Major Economic Cracks

There are economic cracks in spending, cracks in employment, and cracks in delinquencies.

But there are no cracks in the CPI. It’s coming down much slower than expected. And the PPI appears to have bottomed.

Add it up: Inflation + Recession = Stagflation.

Election Impact

In 2020, younger voters turned out in the biggest wave in history. And they voted for Biden.

Younger voters are not as likely to vote in 2024, and they are less likely to vote for Biden.

Millions of voters will not vote for either Trump or Biden. Net, this will impact Biden more. The base will not decide the election, but the Trump base is far more energized than the Biden base.

If Biden signs a TikTok ban, that alone could tip the election.

If No Labels ever gets its act together, I suspect it will siphon more votes from Biden than Trump. But many will just sit it out.

“We’re just kind of over it,” Noemi Peña, 20, a Tucson, Ariz., resident who works in a juice bar, said of her generation’s attitude toward politics. “We don’t even want to hear about it anymore.” Peña said she might not vote because she thinks it won’t change anything and “there’s just gonna be more fighting.” Biden won Arizona in 2020 by just over 10,000 votes. 

The Journal noted nearly one-third of voters under 30 have an unfavorable view of both Biden and Trump, a higher number than all older voters. Sixty-three percent of young voters think neither party adequately represents them.

Young voters in 2020 were energized to vote against Trump. Now they have thrown in the towel.

And Biden telling everyone how great the economy is only rubs salt in the wound.

Tyler Durden Sat, 03/16/2024 - 11:40

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