[xyzzy123]

I wonder if many social problems are being "made worse" by the baumol effect.

As productivity goes up in some areas of the economy, the relative cost of dealing with social problems goes up. Doctors, nurses, social workers, police - these professions are essential but not very scalable.

You would expect that as you grow the economy, you have more resources to deal with homelessness, violence, drug addiction etc, but paradoxically the exact resources needed to address these problems are getting relatively more expensive every year compared to other goods.

I expect these problems should keep "getting worse" in dollar terms as broader productivity increases.

[isthisfoss]

It’s not a money issue. These cities have all the money they can into reducing “homelessness” aka open air drug markets. It’s a policy issue. Get these guys off the street and tell them to get clean.

[bsder]

The money being spent on "fixing homelessness" is a small fraction of the money that was being spent on the (admittedly terrible) mental health medical facilities that California shut down back in the 1970s.

"A failing mental health system leaves this mother pleading: Keep him in jail"

https://www.latimes.com/california/story/2022-12-12/one-moms...

https://www.latimes.com/opinion/letters-to-the-editor/story/...