[_heimdall]

Unemployment really needs to be paired with the Labor Force Participation Rate. Unemployment is low, but LFPR is down as well. 10 years ago it hovered steadily around 63.5-64%. The pandemic crushed it, but we're still only back up to around 62.5%.

That's a lot of people not working that simply aren't in the market anymore, unemployment would look a lot worse if they were included.

[bryanlarsen]

LFPR is above the level it was pre-pandemic. Immigration is the best way of driving up the LFPR, but that was essentially nil during the pandemic and is still way down. Combine that with the aging population, and a slight increase in LFPR over the last 3 years is much better than could be expected.

[_heimdall]

Sorry, missed this reply! Here's my source for the LFPR stats I mentioned above, we haven't recovered from early 2020 yet (and are way off from the rates pre-housing crash)

https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/CIVPART