The U-Haul Indicator of Supply and Demand

The mainstream media reports on the U-Haul indicator of supply and demand:

One measure of a region’s economic health is the relative price of moving-truck rentals. It has been said that people vote with their feet. They pick up and go to where the jobs and opportunities are. The hard part is that it costs more — a lot more — to move to where the jobs and opportunities are than to move to where jobs and opportunities are limited. My favorite measure for this doesn’t come from the Bureau of Labor Statistics. Nor does it come from any other agency of the federal government.

It comes from U-Haul, the truck and trailer rental company. It has on-the-ground evidence and prices its rentals accordingly. Go to its Web site, and you can learn quickly where people are going. You can also learn where they are leaving. How will you know this? Simple.

If lots of people are trying to go where you want to go, it will cost a lot more than renting equipment to go to the place everyone is trying to leave. Just as there is a law of supply and demand, there is a law of arrivals and departures.

Unfortunately for the MSM, they’re a little behind the curve on this one. As Mark Perry points out, the blogosphere has been using the U-Haul indicator for years.

HT: Club for Growth