| Unleash Prosperity Hotline Issue #407 11/9/2021 |
| 1) Biden To The Courts: Drop Dead We’re pretty sure this is not how it’s supposed to work:  |
| 2) Where Are All The Workers? Unemployment is low, but that is in part because labor force participation remains at or near an all-time low. We are still more than four million jobs below where we were pre-Covid. A big part of the problem, as we have pointed out multiple times on these pages, is that government welfare programs are providing generous benefits that can match the financial rewards from working. But there is something else troubling going on. Older workers who dropped out of the workforce when Covid hit (they were the most vulnerable) have not come back. See chart below, supplied by our friend David Doll, CEO of L.E. Jones Company. The yellow line is the labor force participation rate for the +50 age group. Perhaps this older age cohort got accustomed to not working over the past year and a half and have decided to retire early. On the one hand, earlier retirement is the sign of an affluent society, but it also is bad to see these labor force drop outs, as early retirees die at an earlier age than those who are productive and keep working. In the meantime, if the oldsters aren’t going to be working like they used to, we are going to need a LOT more young immigrants to take these jobs. Labor Force Participation By Age Group:  |
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