2 ms·

It's not record high employment, its record low unemployment.

• adventured 9y ago
  It is in fact record high employment. It hit 155.2 million in February. The highest number of people that have ever been employed in US history. By comparison, that number was 143 million just five years ago. The prior peak before the great recession ten years ago, was 146 million. It's not the record for labor force participation rate obviously. That will never be hit again, thanks to the US aging.
  • dv_dt 9y ago
    > It's not the record for labor force participation rate obviously. That will never be hit again, thanks to the US aging. Maybe, but not necessarily. The Labor force is defined as those of "working age", so if they age out of the tracked range, then they no longer accounted for in the labor force participation rate calculation. There may be a general population participation rate (not sure if I have the right term here) for which your comment could be projected if current demographic trends hold, but that can be shifted by things like shifting immigration or fertility rate trends.
    • adventured 9y ago
      It'd be theoretically possible, however the rate at which the US is aging, puts a very low likelihood on it happening. We'd need an extraordinary burst of immigration, or perhaps to start counting robots as workers and taxing them accordingly (which we may yet do). This was a big headline the other day: "People over 65 years old would outnumber children by 2035, a first in U.S. history, according to updated projections released by the Census Bureau on Tuesday." https://www.wsj.com/articles/elderly-in-u-s-are-projected-to-outnumber-its-children-for-first-time-1520967362 https://www.wsj.com/articles/elderly-in-u-s-are-projected-to...