US Employment relative to Population Growth

Mike Smitka, Economics, Washington & Lee Univ

Today's Employment Situation. Adding jobs isn't enough, because our population is growing. I've created a normalized level of employment that accounts for example for "boomer" retirement. At the current rate we'll be back pretty close to normal within 2 years. Since the are headwinds, basically the entire rest of the world, the Fed will be slow to raise rates, but raise they will, so the next President will face quite a different environment. (Note: the age-specific levels of employment for the age brackets I display were stable for the 10 years preceding the start of the Great Recession in January 2007. That provides the basis for my calculations. For details see HERE.)