The FT article brings it up as well - most HNers never read the articles.

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.

Isn’t that a proxy for aging and lower birth rates?

A lot of things unraveled around 2012.

https://wtfhappened2012.com

Is this working age population or all ages ?

> 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?

As the population continues to age, and more people are 62+, this is expected...

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?

4.4% is the headline number, but there are other measures of unemployment [1] that show we are closer to 8% when you include people that are discouraged from even looking and those working part-time but would prefer a full time job.

There's also a stagnation of salaries relative to inflation and a slow hiring market that has people locked into a job when they'd like to find something better. The K-shaped recoveries have people slipping out of the middle class. Combine with housing increasing faster than inflation, future generations having a lower quality of life than their parents.

The wealthy are doing what they can to try to direct the narrative elsewhere, by controlling media sources, blaming immigrants, blaming China, and blaming the government. But we really have far too much wealth concentration to be sustainable, not unlike the ending of a game of monopoly. If a more stable solution isn't found soon, I fear things will get much worse than they already are.

[1]: https://www.bls.gov/news.release/empsit.t15.htm

US economy is robust, the problem is that people don’t have the same safety nets when out of work.

No job means no healthcare or reduced coverage for many people for example, so it is a bigger deal to have unemployment.

Which means a Finnish or Spanish level unemployment would be much more catastrophic, however anyone expecting the demise of USA will have to keep waiting as the country is very rich and developed and as a result they will re-group and be fine - eventually.

The U-3 rate does not include those that drove for Uber one hour in the month. The gold standard metric is labor participation rate of white men over 20, and that's not looking good: https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/LNS11300028

From TFA: "The fall was led by a drop in healthcare employment following widespread strikes by medical workers in New York, California and Hawaii"

You’re absolutely right. The labor market is still quite strong. All the doom and gloom from places like HN is coming from the many layoff announcements and fear of AI.

Already told about this already being discussed here: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47287309

Doublespeak, am I right? :)

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Doublespeak