[Retric]

US employment rate has steadily fallen over time. Currently the overall rate for working age people is around 60%. Which means ~40% of the adult working age population does not have a job.

Why the huge discrepancy with the official rate? Well some of it's stay at home parents and early retirees, but a large chunk of that is prison and disabled which have both quietly ballooned over time.

These numbers look worse when you include women and older men, but here is the long term trend: https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/LREM25MAUSA156S

[krrrh]

Actually the numbers including women don't look too bad. With the recent recovery in employment it actually looks like labour participation has been relatively flat since the mid-eighties.

https://fred.stlouisfed.org/graph/?g=lxWv

One does have to wonder how the statistics are affected by millions of working adult residents participating in the economy as illegal aliens and therefore not counted. The reduction in male labor participation also brings to mind what is clearly now one of the biggest splits in American conservatism: between people like Kevin D. Williamson[1] and Nicholas Eberstadt[2] who focus on a moral and cultural downward spiral, vs Steve Bannon [3] who credits the decline to free trade, and both legal (H1B) and illegal immigration.

[1] Read the last few paragraphs: https://www.nationalreview.com/magazine/2016/03/28/father-f-... [2] https://www.amazon.com/Men-Without-Work-Americas-Invisible/d... [3] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NAfm5L_DOLM

[Retric]

I don't agree. The combined rate for 25-55 year shows every year from 1988 to 2008 was above the rate from 2008-2016.

Now, if the current trend continues for 5-10 years then we might recover. But, based on historical trends 2018 is likely a peak right before a recession vs the new normal.