Writing About the Economy From Multiple Perspectives

How to use POVs to describe the economy

This Tuesday, I participated in an unconventional interview on the Marketplace podcast. Instead of one reporter asking me questions about the housing market, two reporters played tag-team, with reporter Kristin Schwab role-playing as a homebuyer and reporter Matt Levin as a homeowner. Homebuyers and homeowners have two completely different points of view, so their questions focused on different aspects of the housing market.

When telling stories about the economy, it's helpful to establish the point of view (POV.) For example, the story of what's going on in the housing market will differ depending on whether the POV is that of the homebuyer, the home seller, the real estate agent, or the home builder. All of these characters will care about different things for different reasons. Homebuyers tend to care about affordability, while home sellers tend to care about home values. Real estate agents care about the number of transactions, and builders care about their profit margins.

POV matters when describing any situation or event. For example, If I'm recounting a wedding, the details I focus on will depend on the perspective I take. The bride, the groom, the officiant, the mother of the groom, and the father of the bride will all have different views on whether the wedding met or exceeded their expectations. (FYI, if I'm your wedding guest, my opinion will hinge on the liveliness of the dance floor.)

When economists evaluate a policy change, like a tax increase, they, too, must establish what POVs to consider. For example, increasing property taxes would financially hurt homeowners. However, a property tax could raise school revenue that would benefit teachers and students. 

When reading stories about the economy, consider what POV the author is taking, explicitly or implicitly. A writer with an agenda might only present the POVs supporting their conclusions while ignoring others. Recently, Australian CEO Tim Gurner went viral for saying, "We need to see pain in the economy. We need to remind people that they work for the employer, not the other way around." Gurner spoke from his own perspective as a property developer who wants to hire workers for less money. When he says "we," he means executives like himself, not the workers he is admonishing. 

It's up to the writer to decide which POVs to present to the reader. Giving multiple POVs can allow the reader to choose what characters to care about. But a single POV can also be an effective way to tell an economic story, as long as the writer acknowledges the missing perspectives. When describing a wedding, we could ignore what the groom's mother thought of the bride's dress or what the guests thought of the DJ and focus instead on the bride and groom's experience. When describing the economy, oftentimes, we can ignore the perspective of wealthy executives and focus instead on the experience of the working class.