Talking Points: The Employment Situation: Nearly every indicator except the headline unemployment rate suggests an economy with no labor-side inflationary pressure and substantial headroom for cyclical growth:


Five Equitable Growth Graphs

2017 03 10 Employment Rates for Prime Aged Workers 2017 03 10 Long Term Unemployment Elevated 2017 03 10 Who Is Not at Full Employment 2017 03 10 Weak Public Sector Employment 2017 03 10 Nominal Wage Growth Stalled

Ten Talking Points:

  1. Labor market still much looser than at the business cycle peaks of 2007 or 2001.
  2. Prime-age employment rate of only 78% vs. 80% or 82%.
  3. Real wage growth does not suggest an economy at full employment
  4. Nominal wage growth stalled for median worker.
  5. Nominal wage growth not fast enough to keep inequality from rising further.
  6. Long-term unemployment still abnormally high by 10%-points as a share of all unemployed workers
  7. Low headline unemployment rate pretty much the only labor market indicator suggesting an economy at full employment
  8. Other indicators are still suggesting considerable headroom for faster growth and higher cyclical employment
  9. In retrospect Bernanke-Yellen judgment clearly wrong back in 2013-4 that economy was nearing full employment and accelerating inflation.
  10. Economy still very, very far indeed from anything that might be called "full employment" for African Americans.

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