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But problems 1 and 2 are the same for the official unemployment metric in times past as well. 1. If the person has stopped looking for a job, their likelihood

But problems 1 and 2 are the same for the official unemployment metric in times past as well. 1. If the person has stopped looking for a job, their likelihood of resuming their job-seeking is pretty low. That's especially true for the unusually large aging baby-boomer population who are taking an early retirement rather than seeking re-employment. 2. While that's clearly another indicator of the strength of the job market, it is hard to argue that no job is better than a job which isn't ideal for skill/pay reasons. If you have a suggestion on how to accurately measure this that'd be great. Who knew that a single number was insufficient to measure something as complex as employment? Yeah, we need to look at the larger picture, but it's hard to say we have exceptionally low unemployment AND that this is a good time for a stimulus.

mindcrime 8y ago
But problems 1 and 2 are the same for the official unemployment metric in times past as well. Absolutely. Don't get me wrong... I'm not arguing for or against any specific policy in the post above, or making any particular claim regarding Bernanke's argument. I just wanted to point out that saying "we're at full employment" is at least a little bit questionable as an assertion, at least if we take "full employment" to represent a situation where lack of available labor represents a threat to the economy, vis-a-vis other policy issues. Maybe I'm just picking nits with this observation, but that jumped out me for some reason, when I was reading the article.
- mywittyname 8y ago
  But "full employment" is widely considered to be a sub 5.0% unemployment rate. > at least if we take "full employment" to represent a situation where lack of available labor represents a threat to the economy, vis-a-vis other policy issues. I believe that there are officially fewer unemployed people than there are open jobs in the US [1]. Not sure if that's the kind of "threat" you're looking for, but it qualifies, as a risk at least. [1] http://money.cnn.com/2017/06/06/news/economy/us-job-openings-6-million/index.html http://money.cnn.com/2017/06/06/news/economy/us-job-openings...

mindcrime 8y ago

But problems 1 and 2 are the same for the official unemployment metric in times past as well. Absolutely. Don't get me wrong... I'm not arguing for or against any specific policy in the post above, or making any particular claim regarding Bernanke's argument. I just wanted to point out that saying "we're at full employment" is at least a little bit questionable as an assertion, at least if we take "full employment" to represent a situation where lack of available labor represents a threat to the economy, vis-a-vis other policy issues. Maybe I'm just picking nits with this observation, but that jumped out me for some reason, when I was reading the article.

mywittyname 8y ago
But "full employment" is widely considered to be a sub 5.0% unemployment rate. > at least if we take "full employment" to represent a situation where lack of available labor represents a threat to the economy, vis-a-vis other policy issues. I believe that there are officially fewer unemployed people than there are open jobs in the US [1]. Not sure if that's the kind of "threat" you're looking for, but it qualifies, as a risk at least. [1] http://money.cnn.com/2017/06/06/news/economy/us-job-openings-6-million/index.html http://money.cnn.com/2017/06/06/news/economy/us-job-openings...