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How can anyone believe that our economy will grow like it once did? Or that the next president can change the universal laws of basic math? Or that the Federal Reserve can unfail this chart's "new and improved" trend?
Not only are we 64 million jobs below trend, but we have fewer workers between the ages of 16 and 54 than we had in 1997. Seriously.
Source Data:
St. Louis Fed: Employment Level - 16 to 54 Years
7 comments:
For those keeping track at home, this chart shows 15 years of nothing.
Mark,
The Fed unfailed Wall Street - Mission Accomplished.
As for the next president, it makes no difference if it's Obama or Romney. We have a one party system that's dishonestly presented as a two party system. What a joke.
Heck, at least China is honest about their one party system.
Do you know if there has ever been a period like 1997-2012 where the prime work force stagnated so long?
I'm sure there are examples in other countries. Maybe the great depression or right after the civil war. It is ugly out here in the field.
the past was different since we had untapped natural wealth left to develop, productize, and monetize, ~1848 - ~1930.
After the war we were able to direct this development expansion outwards, economically colonizing the third world.
But the employment curve was flat 1948-1968, rose 1964-1990, and has been flat since 1990.
Just looking at 16-24 cohort:
http://research.stlouisfed.org/fred2/graph/?g=bFQ
gives an idea of the demographic picture -- employment more than doubled between 1960 and 1980!
I think the 1970s wage-price inflation process had a lot to do with that.
As I've said before, I still don't have a good "thesis" about the 1990's "full-employment" thing.
Dirt-cheap gasoline sure helped. The savings we got from trading with cheap-labor China also helped, even at the cost of the rising accumulate trade deficit.
MacOS 7, Windows 95, internet, dotcom jazz, sure.
hmm:
http://i.imgur.com/IOrWp.png is one of my ghetto charts comparing age 16-24 population (green) with the 16-24 FRED data (red).
This doesn't count immigrants, only recorded US births aged into the 16-24 range.
We can see the boomers flood into the work-force 1964-1980, and we see the echo boomers -- Gen Y -- start to appear in 1998, only to get clobbered by the tech recession, fail to get jobs in the bubble time, and now get shafted in the recession.
Plus we've loaded them up with a trillion of student loan debt now.
I got in early enough to catch the last of the boomer regime of free higher ed -- UC was $1300 my first year and still only $1500 my fourth year -- and that included health insurance, LOL.
Fees this year are $14,000.
mab,
As for the next president, it makes no difference if it's Obama or Romney. We have a one party system that's dishonestly presented as a two party system. What a joke.
I hear that. Sigh.
Mr Slippery,
Do you know if there has ever been a period like 1997-2012 where the prime work force stagnated so long?
In the US? I can't say for sure, but I kind of doubt it. Sigh.
That won't stop Jeremy Siegel from extrapolating 200+ years of American history well into the distant future and calling it a great prediction though, lol. Sigh.
Troy,
Plus we've loaded them up with a trillion of student loan debt now.
I decided to chart those 16 to 54 to reduce the effect of extra people in college. It sure didn't reduce it much though.
In my opinion, college has become the new high school. In theory, that removes a good 4 years of total pay *and*, as you say, racks up a ton of extra debt.
We are going to have some very educated and very broke retail sales people (assuming we'll still have retail sales jobs in an automated world). Sigh.
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