By Robert Romano

At 3.7 percent, unemployment nationwide is at near 50-year lows as the U.S. economy gets ready to enter the fourth quarter. As good as the low numbers are, the American people may be surprised to learn that they could go even lower amid shifting demographics and surplus demand for labor.

This is already baked into the cake because of higher levels of education being achieved on a generational basis. For reference, those with Bachelor’s degrees and higher or an Associate’s degree or some college have unemployment rates of 2.1 percent and 3.1 percent respectively, below the 3.7 percent national rate, and as those populations take a greater share of the labor force as Baby Boomers retire, that will almost certainly push down the long-term unemployment rate.

Recent declines in labor participation have reversed, too, which will add to labor markets in the coming years.

Since the dotcom bubble popped in the early 2000s, labor participation among working aged adults aged 16-to-64 declined markedly from more than 77 percent down to 72.6 percent in 2015, representing more than  9 million people who would have been a part of the economy had participation rates remained what they were in the late 1990s.

But then, in 2016, it shifted as labor participation among working aged adults began increasing again — contrary to Bureau of Labor Statistics projections that thought it would remain steady at 72.6 percent through 2024. As of 2018, labor participation among 16-to-64-year-olds is up to 73.6 percent.

As a result, 2.1 million more 16-to-64-year-olds are a part of the labor force than would have been had the participation rate remained what it was in 2015. Add to the mix seniors participating at greater levels as Americans live longer and we have a larger labor pool than previously expected.

But that won’t last forever. As Baby Boomers age, even with greater life expectancy, labor participation among seniors will peak and then begin to decline.

And then there’s the job openings, currently at 7.2 million, representing about 2.8 percent of the population older than 16 years.

If that remains constant for the peak of the business cycle, by 2030, the number of job openings could rise to more than 8 million. But that may not hold steady. With a surplus of seniors retiring, the number of job openings could be much greater as all the replacement jobs from Baby Boomers open up.

The mismatch will almost certainly be exacerbated by the tepid growth of 16-64-year-old population, which will be a little more than 4.3 million or so by 2030, judging by the latest Census population projections. The growth of seniors will be about 20 million, at which point the last Baby Boomers born in 1965 will have just hit retirement age.

So, what will happen when the retirement wave fully passes? Either the labor force along with the economy will begin contracting, or working aged adults will work in greater percentages than prior generations. We already know that with their longer periods of education, the unemployment rates will be lower. And because there will be surplus demand for labor at that point, along with greater labor participation levels, barring other adverse economic circumstances, people will work more.

Robert Romano is the Vice President of Public Policy at Americans for Limited Government.

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Treasury should end Federal Reserve remittance payments that promote illegal immigration

Sept. 13, 2019, Fairfax, Va.—Americans for Limited Government President Rick Manning today issued the following statement urging Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin to end illegal immigrant remittance payment programs to Mexico via the Federal Reserve:

“The Department of Treasury should end the Federal Reserve program Directo a Mexico that aids illegal aliens in making remittance payments to Mexico reported on by Michelle Malkin and Judicial Watch. It is incumbent upon Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin to conduct a thorough review of foreign remittances including this program and implement policies to deny the capacity of foreign nationals illegally in our country to send money home. Remittances are one of the primary funding mechanisms the human trafficking cartels and the greatest lure for illegal aliens and the federal government needs to take every action available under the law to deny traffickers this money source.”

To view online: https://getliberty.org/2019/09/treasury-should-end-federal-reserve-remittance-payments-that-promote-illegal-immigration/

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ALG Editor’s Note: In the following featured post from National Review, Ed Whelan quotes Steven Menashi’s opening statement before the Senate Judiciary Committee:

Why a ‘fair and impartial judiciary has special meaning’ to Second Circuit Nominee Menashi

By Ed Whelan

According to someone present at Second Circuit nominee Steven Menashi’s confirmation hearing on Wednesday, it was difficult to hear Menashi’s poignant retelling of his family’s flight from vicious mobs in 1940s Iraq because of a vicious mob in the Dirksen building. So I provide here an extensive excerpt from Menashi’s opening statement:

“I am proud to have these family members here and I would like to say something about them, if you’ll indulge me, because ours is a family that could only have come together in America.

“My father is an immigrant from Iran. He was born in Tehran to an Iraqi Jewish family that had lived in Baghdad for centuries before having to leave. Most people have forgotten this today but Iraq was once a flourishing center of Jewish life and culture. Religious and ethnic persecution put an end to that. Today in Baghdad it is estimated there are 10 Jews left.

“One of the outbreaks of violence against the Jews in Iraq was the Farhud, a pogrom in 1941 in which Baghdadi Jews were raped and murdered, and hundreds of Jewish homes and businesses were looted or destroyed. My grandmother Daisy survived the Farhud because her Kurdish neighbors smuggled her and her sisters out of the city, running across the flat rooftops of the houses in Baghdad until they reached a hiding place in the countryside.

“My grandparents later tried to build a new home in Iran but eventually left because they could not trust the courts to be impartial. My grandfather lost his livelihood after having a dispute with the partners in his auto parts business and he could not rely on the courts to accept the testimony of a Jew. Because of my family’s experience, this country’s commitment to the rule of law, to equal justice for each individual regardless of their background, and to a fair and impartial  judiciary has special meaning to me.

“I also want to say something also about my mother’s family, and her father for whom I am named. My grandfather Samuel James Berenson escaped the Ukraine at age 13 when, in the middle of the night, his family pushed him from the Ukrainian side of the frozen Bug River into the arms of relatives waiting on the Polish side. He made his way to the Bronx, where he worked in his father’s candy store while finishing high school. When he applied to medical school, to avoid the anti-Jewish quotas of the  time, he adopted a middle name—because most Jewish immigrants did not have middle names. Jimmy Walker was the mayor of New York City at the time, so he took the middle name James, and that’s why my middle name is James too.

“My grandfather became a surgeon and an officer in the U.S. Army, and he returned to Europe as a soldier to help liberate the concentration camps. While there, he would ask the Jewish prisoners about the relatives he had left behind. We eventually learned that those relatives, his aunts and uncles and their children, were murdered by German forces in their hometown during the Holocaust.

“I want also to acknowledge my in-laws Maya and Victor Golant, who are both Jewish refugees from the Soviet Union. Like many others, they came to this country thanks to the Jackson-Vanik Amendment passed by this body in 1974.

“My family has made me who I am today. The lessons of their struggles to escape violence and discrimination have resonated with me for as long as I can remember. My family and I are grateful for the home we have found in America, and I appreciate our constitutional traditions of equality before the law, religious freedom, tolerance, and an impartial judiciary.”

Yes, this is a nominee that the Left is shamelessly smearing as a fascist.

Permalink here.

 

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