Here are two more indicators that we are not at full employment and wages are stagnant: People do not support an unfettered increase in the labor supply*, and people do not support exporting jobs**.
* Especially if those laborers come from a high-risk area of the world.
** aka “free trade,” or more correctly, a perpetual trade deficit.
People are busy moralizing and crying racism, but really- it’s the economy stupid.
The correlation between the U-3 and the U-6 has broken down to some extent. U-3 used to be between 55% and 60% of U-6. Now it’s right about (and sometimes even) below 50%. That may not seem like a lot of difference, but it is: it corresponds to jobs not existing of two to three million. If the historical relationship between the two measures still applied, the U-6 would be somewhere between 7.8 and 8.5%.
Here are two more indicators that we are not at full employment and wages are stagnant: People do not support an unfettered increase in the labor supply*, and people do not support exporting jobs**.
* Especially if those laborers come from a high-risk area of the world.
** aka “free trade,” or more correctly, a perpetual trade deficit.
People are busy moralizing and crying racism, but really- it’s the economy stupid.
The correlation between the U-3 and the U-6 has broken down to some extent. U-3 used to be between 55% and 60% of U-6. Now it’s right about (and sometimes even) below 50%. That may not seem like a lot of difference, but it is: it corresponds to jobs not existing of two to three million. If the historical relationship between the two measures still applied, the U-6 would be somewhere between 7.8 and 8.5%.