Great news about American wealth.

Noah Smith is smart but because he is an economist, by nature of his chosen profession there must be worm-eaten parts of his brain. This wealth he is so enthusiastic about is an illusion; it’s meaningless. If the value of a house goes up but you can’t sell because interest rates are too high to buy another one, that’s not a true wealth gain. This is just paper wealth of no practical value. The same for your car, etc.

The reality is that inflation is causing real income to plummet while the job market looks rosy in the stats but in actuality is pretty dismal in most fields.

Most Americans have little savings and so if their real income falls de facto 20%, they are much poorer and rightly feel that way. Noah Smith’s numbers are crap and so is his reasoning.