alt Hacker NewsThe ungameable statistic is the native born labor force participation rate, which also ticked down: https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/LNU01373413.
Unfortunately, that figure never recovered from the pandemic. It also never recovered from a major drop after the 2008 recession.
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Hot take, but I don’t think it should recover. If anything, I think a combination of low unemployment, higher wages, and a labor force participation rate of ~45-55% would be a sweet spot to aim for:
* It would indicate more single income households able to make ends meet and live higher quality lives
* It would suggest more stay-at-home parents to rear children, which is only possible in a safe and stable economic environment
* It’d also suggest a higher amount of community engagement, rather than mere working and resting.
* A rise in successful single-income households would also suggest improvements in cost of living affordability
In our current world, where we expect both parents to work full-time jobs to survive (because the cost of everything assumes a married couple employed full-time, especially in cities), this number is bad; in a healthier society, it might be a good thing.
I’d argue in favor of deflating costs or raising wages instead of increasing labor force participation, but that’s my personal soapbox.
A lot of things unraveled around 2012.
Isn’t that a proxy for aging and lower birth rates?
As the population continues to age, and more people are 62+, this is expected...
> The ungameable statistic
How are the normal unemployment rates (U-3, U-6, etc.) "gamed" exactly? Or, put another way: what would you do differently?
I’m naturalized—very, very long term—but I couldn’t find any stats that track by US citizens.
I suppose that makes me a second-class citizen?
>The ungameable statistic is the native born labor force participation rate, which also ticked down: https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/LNU01373413.
It's pretty obvious the declining native born rate is just mirroring the overall decline in labor participation, probably from demographic changes. Old people retire and stop working, after all.
https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/CIVPART
If you look at prime age labor force participation rate, it tells a completely different story:
https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/LNS11300060
It's ironic that you talk of "ungameable statistics", implying that others are misleading people with the statistics, when you're seemingly trying to do the same thing by selectively presenting that statistic to imply that immigrants are stealing native-born's jobs.