What We’re Reading

Wages:

Those who are gaining most right now in a workers’ market are in lower-wage industries that typically employ younger people—a section of the workforce that was hardest hit in the early days of the pandemic. Wages for Americans ages 16 to 24 rose in December at the fastest pace for records tracing back to 1997. Pay for workers with a high-school diploma or less is also increasing at a faster rate than more-educated workers for the first time on record.

Weirdness:

I think today the variance of weirdness is increasing. Conformists can conform like never before, due say to social media and the Girardian desire to mimic others. But unusual people can connect with other unusual people, and make each other much weirder and more “niche.” For instance, every possible variant of political views seems to be “out there” these days, and perhaps that is not entirely reassuring. A higher variance for weirdness probably encourages creativity. But is it a positive development on net? We are going to find out.

College:

More than 1 million fewer students are enrolled in college now than before the pandemic began. According to new data released Thursday, U.S. colleges and universities saw a drop of nearly 500,000 undergraduate students in the fall of 2021, continuing a historic decline that began the previous fall.

WFH:

In a 2017-18 BLS survey, 51.9% of those with a bachelor’s degree or higher said they could work from home, while only 11.1% of those with a high school degree or less could.

Accuracy:

For residents of Mayfield subjected to the flurry of alerts and text messages, the urgent pleadings of television meteorologists and the barrage of warnings on social media, one thing has been clear: This was not a tornado that came without warning.

Ms. Jackson said she was surprised by how accurately forecasters had pegged the timing of the tornado, one of several that swept through Kentucky that night. “They said it would hit at 9:30 and it hit at 9:30,” she said.

Have a good weekend.