[overgard]

I don't trust the unemployment numbers to be useful here because it's just measuring "do you have a job or not", not more important things like "does this job pay you enough to survive" or "do you have to work multiple jobs to make ends meet". There are other metrics that look really bad. For example, from google: "The labor-force participation rate shrank to 61.5%, marking one of the lowest points in recent years as potential workers give up searching for employment." So, unemployment might be artificially low because a lot of people just.. gave up. I know a few people like that, and life on SSI checks is pretty grim! There's also this bit: "The U-6 unemployment rate, which includes discouraged workers and those working part-time for economic reasons, sits at 8.2%"

Lets say you graduated with a STEM degree and now you're working at starbucks or walmart. Congrats you're employed! Is that sustainable or good? It's just not a useful metric. It's like the super rich pointing at the stock market and going "we're not in a recession, the number is going up!" and yet real buying power and wages are declining for everyone except the massively wealthy.