19 ms·

Unprecedented 'Jobless Boom' Tests Limits of US Economic Expansion

68 points by toomuchtodo 9mo ago

toomuchtodo 9mo ago
https://archive.today/ZU7Wt https://archive.today/ZU7Wt
- pcthrowaway 9mo ago
  Archive.today (and all of its mirrors) have been unusable for me over the last week or so. Prior to that it was incredibly unreliable; but I've only had success using it once (trying all mirrors) in the last couple of weeks. Does anyone have recommendations for alternatives?
  - couatli 9mo ago
    I don't have a direct answer but I hope this will help anyway. I have found that https://archive.today/ https://archive.today/, https://archive.is/ https://archive.is/ and https://archive.ph/ https://archive.ph/ don't resolve correctly when using quad9 or cloudflare dns servers. To work around that I use other dns servers for their name resolution. Maybe you're experiencing a similar issue?
jmclnx 9mo ago
All well and good if you are employed, well off and rich. But if AI starts eliminating jobs, even being rich may not help you in the coming crash. Why a crash ? Most people will not be able to buy anything other than a bit of food and pay their rent, if they are lucky. I doubt we will see most of these impacts for 10 to 20 years. I wonder if this is a reason Trump wants low interest rates ? With low rates the rich can borrow at a low fixed rate and purchase items like Gold and Land. Then when rates have to raise, more $ for them.
- oytis 9mo ago
  That's if AI goes full singularity. Barring this scenario, it might be the end of while collar dream and social mobility in general, but not nessarily the catastrophic "nobody buys anything" change
  - dd8601fn 9mo ago
    I don’t see 70 million Americans transitioning from white collar “knowledge worker” to plumbers and electricians in the 18 months the hype men are quoting. Many don’t even have the physical capabilities for it.
    - oytis 9mo ago
      I'm not seeing that either. I rather thought of white collar work being devalued rather than disappearing. By "end of white collar dream" I meant that you won't be making good money with it, because it would be commoditized with all workers being pretty much the same as far as employers concerned - but there will not necessarily be less work to do. And you will probably be able to afford food, clothes and shelter.
- maxerickson 9mo ago
  It doesn't make sense. If there is a collapse in demand, prices will follow. It's also reasonable to expect prices to go down if there is a productivity boom.
  - munificent 9mo ago
    That expectation only holds together if you think of consumers as a single monolithic cohort. But prices can stay high and price out most consumers as long as there is a minority of rich ones still able to afford it: https://www.oxfordeconomics.com/resource/bifurcated-how-the-us-economy-is-splitting/ https://www.oxfordeconomics.com/resource/bifurcated-how-the-...
    - maxerickson 9mo ago
iseletsk 9mo ago
What article is not mentioning is this, for the US: Private sector: + 687,000 Government sector: – 319,000 Total: + 181,000 --- The government sector doesn't produce virtually anything that counts toward GDP, so GDP growth relates not to 181k of total employment growth but to 687k of private-sector growth. So, no, this is not about eliminating jobs and a few people getting rich. It is about statistcs, and lying to force the agenda.
- oytis 9mo ago
  > The government sector doesn't produce virtually anything that counts toward GDP, This sounds very wrong?
  - ceejayoz 9mo ago
    It's largely correct in the "everyone who died in 2025 consumed significant quantities of the dangerous chemical dihydrogen monoxide" sense.
    - oytis 9mo ago
      How is that, I don't get it? > Gross Domestic Product (GDP) includes consumer spending, government spending, net exports, and total investments. https://www.investopedia.com/terms/g/gdp.asp https://www.investopedia.com/terms/g/gdp.asp
      - ceejayoz 9mo ago
        A lot of government spending is (again, technically) them giving money to the folks who spend the money to produce GDP-y things. NASA hires Boeing, ICE buys cloud services from Microsoft, the military buys Starlink, etc.
- ceejayoz 9mo ago
  > The government sector doesn't produce virtually anything that counts toward GDP… By a very narrow, technically-correct view, sure. Preventing, say, people starving to death, dying of preventable disease, unchecked fraud, invasions by other countries, etc. probably helps GDP a bit.
woodpanel 9mo ago
Honest question, as a) the AI narrative is annoying if not intellectually dishonest as so much money is invested in it b) this requires a trigger warning But if we are counting no. of payrolls: might this statistic hide the effect which mass scale deportations had? Note: not an US citizen
- toomuchtodo 9mo ago
  ~400k documented/authorized workers leave the US labor market through death (55+) or retirement (Boomers, ~4M/year still retiring) every month. Immigration is down, and net migration was likely close to zero or negative in 2025. Unemployment is relatively low, but there is robust evidence of widespread underemployment and it taking 6-12 months for the unemployed to find jobs. My analysis is that companies are reaching for historical ZIRP era returns in a macro with higher rates (which will likely remain higher with the neutral rate closer to 2.5-3%) through "cost efficiency" whenever possible, by offshoring, nearshoring, and avoiding hiring as long as their systems and processes continue to function "good enough." Deportations have pushed wages up in some examples (Texas healthcare industry) due to employers having to hire authorized workers to replace undocumented workers who would work for lower wages, but I have not seen broad data on this topic, citations welcome. The economic metrics are masking a brutal worker economy, being held up by labor shortages (but shortages not yet sufficient to improve labor power), AI capital investment, and healthcare jobs (which will remain durable and in demand due to a rapidly aging US population) is my thesis.
  - rogerkirkness 9mo ago
    In terms of just the US part of what's going on, this sounds very accurate.
  - kojacklives 9mo ago
    I don't really think retiring boomers play the same role in the economy. I think a ~3 million immigrant gap is pretty significant: https://theworlddata.com/net-migration-statistics-in-us/ https://theworlddata.com/net-migration-statistics-in-us/ because the jobs they do enable a lot of BS jobs, go unfilled and actually need to be filled to create other job growth while someone in the labor market for a long time is likely in a comfortable job that will be realized to be unnecessary and already replaced by disruption from newer lower pay equivalents. (Also GDP is in USD which means it is down 30% in many senses.)
FrustratedMonky 9mo ago
What will the economy consist of when there are no more paychecks? Thus nobody buying anything. We'll gain so much efficiency that the economy will evaporate. The markets can't survive on capital alone. LOL. Like a diet focusing on a single macro. When all that is left is capital, then that is an unhealthy diet.
- butterbomb 9mo ago
  > What will the economy consist of when there are no more paychecks? I’m suspecting something like Soylent Green, but perhaps with more proactive action taken to free up resources by removal of masses who are no longer producing enough value to justify their expenses. Following up, I believe eventually it will all be replaced by something much more resembling feudal power. Where bound servants provide service labor in exchange for protection/survival. Something like fuedalism but without the agricultural focus of manorialism.
  - Henchman21 9mo ago
    > but perhaps with more proactive action taken to free up resources by removal of masses who are no longer producing enough value to justify their expenses. How bout we remove the heads of the wealthy and hoist them on petards outside their former dwellings instead? We don't need to justify the removal of these cancerous lumps of flesh we call "the elite". We don't need them. THEY NEED US.
- catigula 9mo ago
  The problem is that it seems like wealthy people (capital owners) might be able to sustain the economy between themselves, which is basically what we're seeing.
  - citrin_ru 9mo ago
    Looks like this is their plan but it's too early to say if it's a good plan.
    - 9mo ago
munk-a 9mo ago
Job sector growth (after revisions down) has been almost entirely within the healthcare industry which is quite unsustainable. We can't all get rich being a middle man between the doctor and our neighbors. Outside of that sector we're seeing economy-wide shrinkage and stagnant wage growth with a decrease in real wages relative to inflation. This is a recession - it will be a full-on depression if we get a doveish Fed chair... it might be one anyways, we'll need extremely adroit action to recover into a healthy economic state. But hey, DOW go up and that's all we care about, right?
- xnx 9mo ago
  > We can't all get rich being a middle man between the doctor and our neighbors I'm not familiar with the healthcare sector. Is this where the job growth is? The country is getting older and I expect there would be a lot of demand for non-AI-replaceable nurses and elder care. Many of those workers have also been deported or scared out of the country.
  - toomuchtodo 9mo ago
    https://old.reddit.com/r/dataisbeautiful/comments/1r21tdv/oc_if_you_exclude_healthcare_employment_the_us/ https://old.reddit.com/r/dataisbeautiful/comments/1r21tdv/oc... https://www.wsj.com/economy/jobs/january-jobs-report-unemployment-b703b0e3 https://www.wsj.com/economy/jobs/january-jobs-report-unemplo... | https://archive.today/9gdEO https://archive.today/9gdEO Healthcare job increases should not be unexpected as the country ages, deaths outnumber births in 21 states (as of this comment), the demand for care will only grow over time. https://usafacts.org/articles/america-is-getting-older-which-states-have-the-largest-elderly-populations/ https://usafacts.org/articles/america-is-getting-older-which... > As of 2024, 18% (61.2 million) of Americans are 65 or older, according to Census Bureau data. The national population over the age of 65 has more than doubled since 1980, with three-quarters of that growth occurring in the 21st century. The 65 and older group grew by more than 26.2 million people, a 74.6% increase, during that time. https://www.prb.org/resources/fact-sheet-aging-in-the-united-states/ https://www.prb.org/resources/fact-sheet-aging-in-the-united... > The number of Americans ages 65 and older is projected to increase from 58 million in 2022 to 82 million by 2050 (a 42% increase), and the 65-and-older age group’s share of the total population is projected to rise from 17% to 23%. The U.S population is older today than it has ever been. Between 1980 and 2022, the median age of the population increased from 30.0 to 38.9, but one-third (17) of states in the country had a median age above 40 in 2022, with Maine (44.8) and New Hampshire (43.3) at the top of the list. It is very unlikely the work done by CNAs, RNs, physical therapists, and others providing this population care can or will be automated.
ZeroCool2u 9mo ago
Gift link for folks: https://www.bloomberg.com/news/features/2026-02-18/us-economy-expansion-forecast-even-with-weak-jobs-data?accessToken=eyJhbGciOiJIUzI1NiIsInR5cCI6IkpXVCJ9.eyJzb3VyY2UiOiJTdWJzY3JpYmVyR2lmdGVkQXJ0aWNsZSIsImlhdCI6MTc3MTQzOTYyOCwiZXhwIjoxNzcyMDQ0NDI4LCJhcnRpY2xlSWQiOiJUQU5JSzZLSVVQV1YwMCIsImJjb25uZWN0SWQiOiJBMTc4NDk2MTA2M0M0RDBBQjdCRENDN0NCMEVERDIxRSJ9.s9pFcqHX0t8r-5gT8ByK3Mc208GptzG0PoxgmUH29CQ https://www.bloomberg.com/news/features/2026-02-18/us-econom...
josefritzishere 9mo ago
The economic condition strains even the jargon of economists. Is the economy booming if unemployment is booming? What does it even mean? Is the economy really booming or is it really just inflation? I feel like they need to be more specific as to what they mean. Or as was said elsewhere here "But hey, DOW go up."
jmaestrooper 9mo ago
>Forecasters expect Friday’s report on gross domestic product to show the economy expanded 2.7% in 2025, a solid pace by any standard for a developed country. I would be very curious to see if any circular deals aka funny money have been factored in there. Also, despite literal hundreds of billions presumably invested in data centers where's all the construction, energy, communication, and other infrastructure build activity? > The latest monthly jobs report published on Feb. 11 by the Bureau of Labor Statistics showed job growth was weaker in 2025 than initially reported, but it also showed hiring picked up in January. The 2025 numbers were revised down (by the largest number in history - again), and no changes have been made to the methodology/models, which means that January data will be revised, too, so nothing shows that "hiring picked up"

68 points by toomuchtodo 9mo ago

toomuchtodo 9mo ago

https://archive.today/ZU7Wt https://archive.today/ZU7Wt

pcthrowaway 9mo ago
Archive.today (and all of its mirrors) have been unusable for me over the last week or so. Prior to that it was incredibly unreliable; but I've only had success using it once (trying all mirrors) in the last couple of weeks. Does anyone have recommendations for alternatives?
- couatli 9mo ago
  I don't have a direct answer but I hope this will help anyway. I have found that https://archive.today/ https://archive.today/, https://archive.is/ https://archive.is/ and https://archive.ph/ https://archive.ph/ don't resolve correctly when using quad9 or cloudflare dns servers. To work around that I use other dns servers for their name resolution. Maybe you're experiencing a similar issue?

jmclnx 9mo ago

All well and good if you are employed, well off and rich. But if AI starts eliminating jobs, even being rich may not help you in the coming crash. Why a crash ? Most people will not be able to buy anything other than a bit of food and pay their rent, if they are lucky. I doubt we will see most of these impacts for 10 to 20 years. I wonder if this is a reason Trump wants low interest rates ? With low rates the rich can borrow at a low fixed rate and purchase items like Gold and Land. Then when rates have to raise, more $ for them.

oytis 9mo ago
That's if AI goes full singularity. Barring this scenario, it might be the end of while collar dream and social mobility in general, but not nessarily the catastrophic "nobody buys anything" change
- dd8601fn 9mo ago
  I don’t see 70 million Americans transitioning from white collar “knowledge worker” to plumbers and electricians in the 18 months the hype men are quoting. Many don’t even have the physical capabilities for it.
  - oytis 9mo ago
    I'm not seeing that either. I rather thought of white collar work being devalued rather than disappearing. By "end of white collar dream" I meant that you won't be making good money with it, because it would be commoditized with all workers being pretty much the same as far as employers concerned - but there will not necessarily be less work to do. And you will probably be able to afford food, clothes and shelter.
maxerickson 9mo ago
It doesn't make sense. If there is a collapse in demand, prices will follow. It's also reasonable to expect prices to go down if there is a productivity boom.
- munificent 9mo ago
  That expectation only holds together if you think of consumers as a single monolithic cohort. But prices can stay high and price out most consumers as long as there is a minority of rich ones still able to afford it: https://www.oxfordeconomics.com/resource/bifurcated-how-the-us-economy-is-splitting/ https://www.oxfordeconomics.com/resource/bifurcated-how-the-...
  - maxerickson 9mo ago

iseletsk 9mo ago

What article is not mentioning is this, for the US: Private sector: + 687,000 Government sector: – 319,000 Total: + 181,000 --- The government sector doesn't produce virtually anything that counts toward GDP, so GDP growth relates not to 181k of total employment growth but to 687k of private-sector growth. So, no, this is not about eliminating jobs and a few people getting rich. It is about statistcs, and lying to force the agenda.

oytis 9mo ago
> The government sector doesn't produce virtually anything that counts toward GDP, This sounds very wrong?
- ceejayoz 9mo ago
  It's largely correct in the "everyone who died in 2025 consumed significant quantities of the dangerous chemical dihydrogen monoxide" sense.
  - oytis 9mo ago
    How is that, I don't get it? > Gross Domestic Product (GDP) includes consumer spending, government spending, net exports, and total investments. https://www.investopedia.com/terms/g/gdp.asp https://www.investopedia.com/terms/g/gdp.asp
    - ceejayoz 9mo ago
      A lot of government spending is (again, technically) them giving money to the folks who spend the money to produce GDP-y things. NASA hires Boeing, ICE buys cloud services from Microsoft, the military buys Starlink, etc.
ceejayoz 9mo ago
> The government sector doesn't produce virtually anything that counts toward GDP… By a very narrow, technically-correct view, sure. Preventing, say, people starving to death, dying of preventable disease, unchecked fraud, invasions by other countries, etc. probably helps GDP a bit.

woodpanel 9mo ago

Honest question, as a) the AI narrative is annoying if not intellectually dishonest as so much money is invested in it b) this requires a trigger warning But if we are counting no. of payrolls: might this statistic hide the effect which mass scale deportations had? Note: not an US citizen

toomuchtodo 9mo ago
~400k documented/authorized workers leave the US labor market through death (55+) or retirement (Boomers, ~4M/year still retiring) every month. Immigration is down, and net migration was likely close to zero or negative in 2025. Unemployment is relatively low, but there is robust evidence of widespread underemployment and it taking 6-12 months for the unemployed to find jobs. My analysis is that companies are reaching for historical ZIRP era returns in a macro with higher rates (which will likely remain higher with the neutral rate closer to 2.5-3%) through "cost efficiency" whenever possible, by offshoring, nearshoring, and avoiding hiring as long as their systems and processes continue to function "good enough." Deportations have pushed wages up in some examples (Texas healthcare industry) due to employers having to hire authorized workers to replace undocumented workers who would work for lower wages, but I have not seen broad data on this topic, citations welcome. The economic metrics are masking a brutal worker economy, being held up by labor shortages (but shortages not yet sufficient to improve labor power), AI capital investment, and healthcare jobs (which will remain durable and in demand due to a rapidly aging US population) is my thesis.
- rogerkirkness 9mo ago
  In terms of just the US part of what's going on, this sounds very accurate.
- kojacklives 9mo ago
  I don't really think retiring boomers play the same role in the economy. I think a ~3 million immigrant gap is pretty significant: https://theworlddata.com/net-migration-statistics-in-us/ https://theworlddata.com/net-migration-statistics-in-us/ because the jobs they do enable a lot of BS jobs, go unfilled and actually need to be filled to create other job growth while someone in the labor market for a long time is likely in a comfortable job that will be realized to be unnecessary and already replaced by disruption from newer lower pay equivalents. (Also GDP is in USD which means it is down 30% in many senses.)

FrustratedMonky 9mo ago

What will the economy consist of when there are no more paychecks? Thus nobody buying anything. We'll gain so much efficiency that the economy will evaporate. The markets can't survive on capital alone. LOL. Like a diet focusing on a single macro. When all that is left is capital, then that is an unhealthy diet.

butterbomb 9mo ago
> What will the economy consist of when there are no more paychecks? I’m suspecting something like Soylent Green, but perhaps with more proactive action taken to free up resources by removal of masses who are no longer producing enough value to justify their expenses. Following up, I believe eventually it will all be replaced by something much more resembling feudal power. Where bound servants provide service labor in exchange for protection/survival. Something like fuedalism but without the agricultural focus of manorialism.
- Henchman21 9mo ago
  > but perhaps with more proactive action taken to free up resources by removal of masses who are no longer producing enough value to justify their expenses. How bout we remove the heads of the wealthy and hoist them on petards outside their former dwellings instead? We don't need to justify the removal of these cancerous lumps of flesh we call "the elite". We don't need them. THEY NEED US.
catigula 9mo ago
The problem is that it seems like wealthy people (capital owners) might be able to sustain the economy between themselves, which is basically what we're seeing.
- citrin_ru 9mo ago
  Looks like this is their plan but it's too early to say if it's a good plan.
  - 9mo ago

munk-a 9mo ago

Job sector growth (after revisions down) has been almost entirely within the healthcare industry which is quite unsustainable. We can't all get rich being a middle man between the doctor and our neighbors. Outside of that sector we're seeing economy-wide shrinkage and stagnant wage growth with a decrease in real wages relative to inflation. This is a recession - it will be a full-on depression if we get a doveish Fed chair... it might be one anyways, we'll need extremely adroit action to recover into a healthy economic state. But hey, DOW go up and that's all we care about, right?

xnx 9mo ago
> We can't all get rich being a middle man between the doctor and our neighbors I'm not familiar with the healthcare sector. Is this where the job growth is? The country is getting older and I expect there would be a lot of demand for non-AI-replaceable nurses and elder care. Many of those workers have also been deported or scared out of the country.
- toomuchtodo 9mo ago
  https://old.reddit.com/r/dataisbeautiful/comments/1r21tdv/oc_if_you_exclude_healthcare_employment_the_us/ https://old.reddit.com/r/dataisbeautiful/comments/1r21tdv/oc... https://www.wsj.com/economy/jobs/january-jobs-report-unemployment-b703b0e3 https://www.wsj.com/economy/jobs/january-jobs-report-unemplo... | https://archive.today/9gdEO https://archive.today/9gdEO Healthcare job increases should not be unexpected as the country ages, deaths outnumber births in 21 states (as of this comment), the demand for care will only grow over time. https://usafacts.org/articles/america-is-getting-older-which-states-have-the-largest-elderly-populations/ https://usafacts.org/articles/america-is-getting-older-which... > As of 2024, 18% (61.2 million) of Americans are 65 or older, according to Census Bureau data. The national population over the age of 65 has more than doubled since 1980, with three-quarters of that growth occurring in the 21st century. The 65 and older group grew by more than 26.2 million people, a 74.6% increase, during that time. https://www.prb.org/resources/fact-sheet-aging-in-the-united-states/ https://www.prb.org/resources/fact-sheet-aging-in-the-united... > The number of Americans ages 65 and older is projected to increase from 58 million in 2022 to 82 million by 2050 (a 42% increase), and the 65-and-older age group’s share of the total population is projected to rise from 17% to 23%. The U.S population is older today than it has ever been. Between 1980 and 2022, the median age of the population increased from 30.0 to 38.9, but one-third (17) of states in the country had a median age above 40 in 2022, with Maine (44.8) and New Hampshire (43.3) at the top of the list. It is very unlikely the work done by CNAs, RNs, physical therapists, and others providing this population care can or will be automated.

ZeroCool2u 9mo ago

Gift link for folks: https://www.bloomberg.com/news/features/2026-02-18/us-economy-expansion-forecast-even-with-weak-jobs-data?accessToken=eyJhbGciOiJIUzI1NiIsInR5cCI6IkpXVCJ9.eyJzb3VyY2UiOiJTdWJzY3JpYmVyR2lmdGVkQXJ0aWNsZSIsImlhdCI6MTc3MTQzOTYyOCwiZXhwIjoxNzcyMDQ0NDI4LCJhcnRpY2xlSWQiOiJUQU5JSzZLSVVQV1YwMCIsImJjb25uZWN0SWQiOiJBMTc4NDk2MTA2M0M0RDBBQjdCRENDN0NCMEVERDIxRSJ9.s9pFcqHX0t8r-5gT8ByK3Mc208GptzG0PoxgmUH29CQ https://www.bloomberg.com/news/features/2026-02-18/us-econom...

josefritzishere 9mo ago

The economic condition strains even the jargon of economists. Is the economy booming if unemployment is booming? What does it even mean? Is the economy really booming or is it really just inflation? I feel like they need to be more specific as to what they mean. Or as was said elsewhere here "But hey, DOW go up."

jmaestrooper 9mo ago

>Forecasters expect Friday’s report on gross domestic product to show the economy expanded 2.7% in 2025, a solid pace by any standard for a developed country. I would be very curious to see if any circular deals aka funny money have been factored in there. Also, despite literal hundreds of billions presumably invested in data centers where's all the construction, energy, communication, and other infrastructure build activity? > The latest monthly jobs report published on Feb. 11 by the Bureau of Labor Statistics showed job growth was weaker in 2025 than initially reported, but it also showed hiring picked up in January. The 2025 numbers were revised down (by the largest number in history - again), and no changes have been made to the methodology/models, which means that January data will be revised, too, so nothing shows that "hiring picked up"