zlacker

Anecdotally as someone in a family all of whom are thriving financially during the pandemic, here are possible reasons it could be true.

* My student loan payments are frozen, I believe the total balance of student loans that are frozen is something like 85% country wide.

* People working remotely = low transit expenses.

* No live events = low entertainment expenses.

* Raging pandemic = low travel expenses.

* Investment = stock market has been very profitable since march. I made 100% last year just on random long term investment.

Basically, if you have a job that was exceeding the minimum threshold of living expenses, any of the extraneous things you were spending money on, other than eating out maybe, have evaporated.

Obviously there is a notable segment of the population that is not doing well, can barely if at all cover day to day expenses, and unemployment has gone up, but that segment isn't necessarily a majority.

That's all just speculation though, I'm not claiming parent is correct.

>>polka_+(OP)
You most likely nail it. The flip side obviously is people who don't have remote jobs. More anecdote, but this has been really hard on family members who have service industry jobs, and while they haven't told me to directly, I assume their savings isn't doing great based on a number of different factors.

>>polka_+(OP)
And don't forget clothing... no need to get new outfits if you are home... no dry cleaning if you wore suits ...

>>polka_+(OP)
> stock market has been very profitable since march. I made 100% last year just on random long term investment.

Hmm. All this makes me wonder if the country opening back up is going to cause the market to flatten out for a bit as people have less money and incentive to invest. Food for thought.

>>ogre_c+gc
Intuition says that people who have to choose between investing and other things aren't the maority of investors.

I'm think the economy will liven up a fair bit once people are out and about spending again, possibly even over-correcting.

>>ogre_c+gc
I could also see it flattening due to people having more options again. The majority of the companies that are listed in the public markets are businesses that didn't have to close. Nation wide retailers, tech companies, oil and gas, all the things that were deemed essential or could be done virtually. It's the mom and pop stores and restaurants that took the brunt of the shutdown, when things are more open again those businesses will be the big winners and we might see them take some revenue from the bigger stores.

>>polka_+(OP)
Anecdotally, as someone who's work kept on trucking (surprisingly - we sell content for display in public spaces where people pass or congregate) - 2020 was a banner year for my family. We saved more than we ever have before and the price of our various assets soared.

We even had a 20% bump in gross revenue while bringing our costs down, and that's after 2019 was flat for us (prior to that we were hitting 30%+ for a handful of years in a row).