The millions of immigrants that arrived in 2021-2024 finally get picked up in the data for labor force and total employment, which continued to spike.
By Wolf Richter for WOLF STREET.
Total nonfarm payrolls rose by 177,000 in April from March, well above the 12-month average of 157,000 for the second month in a row, to a record 159.5 million jobs at employers, not including farm jobs and some independent workers, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics today (blue columns in the chart).
The three-month average job creation, which includes the revisions – March job creation was revised down to 185,000 and February to 102,000 – rose to 155,000 jobs created per month, which is in solid territory (red line).
The weak spot: civilian employment at the federal government fell by 9,000 jobs in April from March, 2.99 million, the third month in a row of declines, bringing the three-month decline to 26,000. These job cuts have unwound Biden’s federal government hiring surge back to February 2024.
But the data still doesn’t capture the full effects of the job cuts so far: Workers on paid leave or receiving severance pay are counted as employed until they stop being paid, the BLS noted.
And it does not include employees working for companies that have contracts with the government and that are now getting laid off. These workers are counted in the various nongovernment categories, such as in the huge category of “Professional and business services,” where employment has actually increased over the past three months by 35,000, including by 17,000 in April, despite the layoffs at some government contractors.
The share of civilian federal government employment in total nonfarm payrolls dipped to 1.87%, the lowest since May 2023. The ratio had stabilized in the second half of 2024 at 1.9%, as government jobs grew at the same pace as private-sector jobs. It started declining in November 2024, as government jobs grew more slowly than private-sector jobs. And this year, it has been heading south faster, on declining federal government jobs and rising private sector jobs.
This relatively low ratio of federal government payrolls (2.99 million) to total nonfarm payrolls (159.5 million) indicates that the job cuts at the federal government, once they’re implemented to the full extent, will not make a big-fat dent in overall employment.
Average hourly earnings rose by only 0.17% in April from March (2.0% annualized), the slowest month-to-month growth since August 2023. March growth was revised up to 0.28% (+3.4% annualized).
The three-month average growth (red line) decelerated to +2.6% annualized, the slowest growth in average hourly earnings since before the pandemic. Clearly, the wage pressures have abated and are now back to prepandemic levels.
I’ll just say this here with an eye on the chart below: The Biden surge of millions of immigrants in 2021-2024 that is now finally getting picked up in the employment data – discussed further below – threw a sudden and vast supply of very cheap labor on the labor market that has squashed the big wage increases during the pandemic that workers at the lowest levels of the wage scale had obtained, and had filtered up from there, which is what we can now see in the average hourly wage data here. Powell has also pointed this out. Employers celebrate this, workers not so much:
Year-over-year, average hourly earnings rose by 3.8% in April, also showing the cooling trend, though it remains above the peak growth rates in the years before the pandemic.
Unemployment rose by 82,000 to 7.16 million people who were actively looking for a job during the survey period, according to the BLS household survey data today, on the continued spike in the labor force data that finally this year started picking up the millions of 2021-2024 immigrants.
The inclusion in the household employment data this year of the surge in immigrants in 2021-2024 has caused the labor force to spike by 2.56 million so far this year, has caused total employment to spike by 2.28 million so far this year, and has pushed up the number of unemployed.
I discussed in detail this sudden inclusion of millions of immigrants in the data this year back when the January data was released: Huge Upward Adjustment to Employment & Labor Force as Wave of Immigrants is Finally Included: The Annual Revisions Are Here
So these are the dynamics we’re seeing here.
The labor force jumped by 518,000 in April from March. So far this year, it has spiked by 2.56 million people, to 171.1 million people, who are either working or are looking for work.
The millions of immigrants that came into the US between 2021 and 2024 were not picked up in the Census population data until late 2024. So in January, as it does every year, the BLS adjusted its household employment data to the new Census population data – hence the spike in the labor force, the spike in total employment, and the increase in the number of unemployed.
Total employment, including farm workers and independent workers, jumped by 436,000 in April from March, having now spiked by 2.28 million so far this year, as the data were adjusted for the immigrants that had arrived in 2021-2024:
The headline unemployment rate (U-3) remained at 4.2% in April. Since June 2024, the unemployment rate has stabilized at the historically low range of 4.0% to 4.2%.
The unemployment rate = number of unemployed people who are actively looking for a job (7.16 million, see chart above) divided by the labor force (171.1 million, see chart above).
An unemployment rate of 4.2% is a sign of a solid balanced labor market, despite the huge influx in just three years of millions of immigrants, and below the Fed’s median projection at the March meeting of 4.4% for the end of 2025:
Enjoy reading WOLF STREET and want to support it? You can donate. I appreciate it immensely. Click on the mug to find out how:
You seem to have migrated right and donned a cheerleading outfit. Goodluck.
And you seem to let “feelings” get in the way of “facts” and “data”. Good luck. Lol.
👍
I have data.. look at real wages and real household income since 2020. They haven’t budged. There is a new ceiling in real income at the median.
When you’re right, you’re right. When you are left, you are left. I just made that up but I imagine somebody has said that before.
How about those of us in the center?
Does that make us the middle finger?
Chs, yep, you’re f*&ked. Pick a side. It’s more fun that way, especially if you pick the right side.
I wouldn’t consider Wolf to be right-wing at all. While I don’t always agree with his take (and I’m definitely right of center), it’s clear that Wolfstreet is about as spin-free as it is possible to be in today’s clickbait media landscape. He provides an unpoligetic breakdown of the numbers as they’re measured and reported. Sometimes the numbers favor the (R)’s and sometimes they favor the (D)’s. In this case, I assume the jobs numbers are not to your liking? Chin up, maybe team blue will win next month’s game. Our political system is a sports league with only 2 teams, so there’s always the next rematch right around the corner!
This!
I mentioned before that I figure Wolf is a liberalish San Francisco guy. But basically he presents facts and his analysis is usually spot on, which is all I really care about when it comes to economics.
i haven’t gotten that impression. i see him as a middle of the road guy who doesn’t fall into left or right.
for example, i’ve seen posts of his very critical of the immigration situation brought on by the dems, but i’ve also seen posts very critical of the nonsense from the reps about how san francisco is a crime ridden dump that no one wants to visit.
Are you sure he isn’t a rightish Tulsa guy? ;-)
The fact we don’t know says something about the quality of the analysis.
Tariff chaos? Sarc? Or so ‘called tariff chaos’?
It sure looks chaotic to me, but that’s just me and a few car outfits etc.
Only comment is in your headline, which I would replace Wall Street and Media’s “moaning and groaning “with their incessant “Fear-Mongering”
Good idea. Why didn’t I think of it?
I like “Whining dogs” better than moaning & groaning
Saw in the WSJ this week that while arrests are up, ICE deportations are actually down from the Biden era, from 724 per day to about 660. It will only take over 30 years at that pace to deport the promised 10 million. So we can expect them to continue to show up in the labor numbers for some time to come. ICE stopped reporting numbers on a daily basis as result.
That’s purposeful misinformation. What happened under Biden is that millions crossed the border every year, and a bunch of them were deported right back, only to cross again, so there were millions of “multiple border-crossers” and millions of deportations. The big number of deportations under Biden were those that were processed at the border and deported back. But very few established illegal immigrants were deported, under the policy that only illegal immigrants that had committed crimes would be deported.
Under Trump, the flood of border-crossers has dried up. There are every few of them now. The deportations reported now are largely of established illegal immigrants, and that’s an entirely different ball-game that Biden had abandoned.
I have no problem with deporting illegals as long as they get due process. I don’t think it is a good idea to let Trump decide who is a criminal and who is not.
As far as jobs are concerned, I see there was a hefty revision down from last months data. I believe it is too early to declare what the tariffs will do to the job market.
My two cents…
“As far as jobs are concerned, I see there was a hefty revision…”
Even after the revisions, as I pointed out, the jobs data for March was very strong and well above average. So what’s your problem?
The three-month job creation figure — the big fat red line — which includes all prior revisions, accelerated in April. So what’s your problem? Cannot read?
“as they get due process. ”
That would mean tying up the courts for the next 10 years hearing all the cases. Clower Privin startegy, overload the system.
How do you feel about him expelling US citizens?
Today its only children, which I guess everyone agrees is fine, but what if he expands it to adults?
Harrold,
The mother, an illegal immigrant, was deported, and she chose to keep her US-born baby (therefore a US citizen) with her. The baby could have stayed behind with someone, but obviously and for good reasons, the mother chose not to. That’s a choice by the mother that has been purposefully twisted by the media into “deported a baby,” to be spread in the social media by morons who cannot use their brain or read anything but headlines.
Reply to swampcreature, due Process is part of our Constitution, you don’t get to decide who to exclude from that. Just saying..
He doesn’t. Every illegal immigrant is literally a criminal. They chose not to “due process” their way into the USA.
You can literally deport them at anytime. In fact Obama was quite good at it.
Even the El Salvadorian who everyone seems so up in arms about had due process. The immigration judges who saw him determined he could be deported, just not to El Salvadore because he was in danger from a rival gang. However, that rival gang no longer exists, so the conditions for the judges order are no longer valid.
Immigration officials should have filed a form that explained that, and a judge should have reviewed that form prior to lifting the deportation restriction. That was the adminstrative error that occurred. So reality is a far bit different than he received no due process.
How can you possibly give due process to millions of
illegal immigrants in a reasonable time frame ? We don’t have enough judges to hear every case. Where was the
desire to follow the law on illegal border crossings ?
First generation American of legal immigrants and we were brought up to respect this country and the law.
If they are here illegally, they are criminals. If your first act is to break the law, it’s not a respectable way to enter a country.
there’s a difference between some level of due process, to prove that you are a citizen, and years of delays, taxpayer funded lawyers and interpreters, being allowed to be released from detention until your hearing, and so on. the latter is what’s been going on for the last 20-30 years.
Oldguy, illegals are by definition criminals. That’s what “illegals” means. They entered our country illegally. Think of all the people who became citizens after years of waiting and going through the proper procedures. There are legal means to become a citizen. Jumping the border is not one of them.
If someone who is not a citizen enters the country and attempts to establish residence without a valid visa, it’s quite valid to deport them — i.e., send them back to where they came from — without a jury trial. The government has broad latitude to decide whether to issue visas, and likewise to revoke them. The only due process required is to verify that they are not citizens and are in the country without a visa or valid permanent resident status..
It is not valid to send them to prison, especially not to a maximum-security prison in a third country.
Deportation and imprisonment are two fundamentally — nay, quintessentially — different things.
The right to not be imprisoned without a jury trial is a fundamental human right.
We have a serious problem in the reporting on these events. None of the men sent to the El Salvador prison — not just Garcia — were “deported”. They were _imprisoned_. Without trial.
If illegal immigrants are merely _deported_, there is no problem of not having court capacity to give each a jury trial.
The claim that we can’t possibly give these people “due process” because we can’t possibly give each a jury trial is a red herring. As long as they are only being _deported_, the only due process required is that to verify that they are indeed illegal immigrants. The requirement for “due process” arises only if they are being _imprisoned_.
“I have no problem with deporting illegals as long as they get due process.”
An “illegal” is by the definition breaking the law.
You could use “undocumented” alien. Then again, we could also use undocumented thief, undocumented rapist, undocumented murderer, speeder, jaywalker, etc., ad nauseum.
Basically all are crooks, but many haven’t been caught. With illegal aliens the law is clear. You’re headed home if you’re caught.
The ‘illegals’ did not follow due process coming in..therefore according to the law they get none on the boot out.
I find it interesting that no one cares one whit about the poor souls who are stuck in regulatory purgatory for years trying to legally become US citizens. But yet I hear incessantly about the “rights” illegals have or should have.
While I’m not educated enough to know what rights illegals have, it feels like we have a system of governance that effectively punishes those trying to follow the rules while rewarding those who do not.
P.S. from my perspective, it feels like Mr. Richter’s an intelligent left of center fellow who seems of late to be avoiding the RTGDFA keys on his keyboard.
Every illegal has broken our laws and entered the country illegally. Therefore every illegal is a criminal.
Hey jm, The folks who were deported and then imprisoned in El Salvadore are in the custody of El Salvadore. The country of El Salvadore can choose to release them any time they want. The United States is not responsible for the due process rights of illegal immigrants once they have been deported.
You might believe the US Government should do more to protect the civil rights of deported illegal immigrants, fine, but your fundamental disagreement should be with the Government of El Salvadore.
BTW, US law allows for the detention (aka imprisonment) of illegal imigrants until they are deported. So, the fact they are incarcerated somewhere else isn’t a substantive argument.
That sounds reasonable but is mainly speculation. I agree there are probably fewer border crossers, but we have to wait for census data to show up to really tell. After all, the ones getting in aren’t exactly reporting it anywhere. Plus, the main thing was the millions that came in under Biden were going to be deported. ICE put out a press release early on that they had a banner day of 900 and again recently that they got 900 in a week in Florida. But most days aren’t anywhere near that which is why they stopped reporting on a daily basis. Seriously, it will take four decades at that rate to deport just the ones that came in under Biden, let alone the ones still coming in.
They will never deport very many. That was just an election propaganda promise. But they’re trying to deport established illegal immigrants, and make a big deal out of it in the media (opposite of what the Biden admin did).
The main thing is that the scary talk and horror stories in the media have caused the tsunami of border crossers to dry up. That’s a huge thing, and this administration did this masterfully, getting the stories out there and everything. They nailed that one. Stopping that tsunami of border crossers was priority #1 in terms of cracking down on illegal immigration.
they’re also trying to get people to self deport.
start actually enforcing e-verify so that people here illegally can’t earn a living, and people will self deport.
There wasn’t a concerted legal effort to block deportations during the Biden administration. The District Court injunctions are definitely slowing the deportation process.
There is quite the difference between deportations between Biden and Trump, as Wolf stated, one was heavily influenced by border deportations which has a different due process than illegals already within our country. SCOTUS just recently reaffirmed ALL illegals have due process rights.
The commenter I replied to seemed to be lamenting the slower pace of deportations under the current administration. Some of that is certainly due to the nature of the deportations. However, the previous administration didn’t face the same legal challenges to its immigration policy. Those challenges are slowing the process. I didn’t comment on the merits of those challenges.
Didn’t the supreme court put a temporary stay(against precedent) stay in, but will be revisiting in a more comprehensive ruling?
https://rumble.com/v6sc6f3-ep.-260-scotus-blocks-trump-deportation-letitia-james-criminal-referral-rfk.html?e9s=src_v1_upp
WSJ is governed by Lachlan Murdoch and if you believe anything from his group you will be smoking something other than Virginian leaf tobacco.
I would have thought that the massive surge in immigration would have lead to a much larger spike in the labor force than just a couple of million. That number barely registers relative to the overall labor force.
Many of them had gotten picked up in the data in 2023 and 2024. The spike this year is the adjustment for those that had been missed.
In 2023 and 2024, before the adjustment, the labor force grew by 4.1 million. So with the adjustment so far this year, the labor force grew by 6.7 million in 2023 through April 2025.
I imagine a lot, probably most, illegals work in the black market economy, where cash is paid, paperwork is non-existent, and all labor laws are broken. I sometimes wonder how big is the “underground economy”. There is no way to collect accurate data on it, so I suppose we will never know. Few are going to admit to government officials that they are breaking the law. There are some estimates about its size, but they are just guesses.
“Average hourly earnings rose by only 0.17% in April from March (2.0% annualized), the slowest month-to-month growth since August 2023”
Good news for inflation!
The inflation we’re experiencing now is nothing compared to early twentieth-century Germany. Then, bad governmental policy led to a disastrous fiscal state that required massive later intervention to fix. It also helped pave the way for Hitler. That’s what inflation can do to you.
Wolf said in article:
“The Biden surge of millions of immigrants in 2021-2024 that is now finally getting picked up in the employment data – discussed further below – threw a sudden and vast supply of very cheap labor on the labor market that has squashed the big wage increases during the pandemic that workers at the lowest levels of the wage scale had obtained.”
Should the porous border policy be viewed as an anti-inflationary policy success? Or as an injustice inflicted by the former administration on legal citizens who are lower-level laborers?
I guess that those two questions aren’t necessarily mutually exclusive.
It was a success in terms of wage repression (good for employers) and thereby took some inflationary fuel out of the economy. Wage repression hammers consumer spending at the lower levels, on a per-capita basis, but now there are a lot more consumers at the lower levels (recent illegal immigrants), and so overall consumer spending is OK. It just depends from which site you’re looking at it. For the economy overall, wage repression is not good. And it can blow up the society.
Wage repression, like rate repression, is a double-edged sword, it appears.
The wage data ‘graphs’ proves reduced inflationary pressure and supports the case for rate cuts, if data continues to soften. FED will wait until summer to decide to move or not to move in the fall, from September on. If wage pressures stay here, 50 points cuts are a given. Growth will slow down as ‘tarrifs’ will eat into global growth and cash flows.
I have a hard time understanding how 4% interest rate is High ?
The FED policy is to sustain 2% inflation. So 2% interest rates would be effectively 0% of free money. Over a 25 year period, the FED’s 2% means that purchasing power of 1 USD declines by 50% (if you exclude compounding).
Given other factors, 4% interest rate seems like a pretty low rate. If our fabulous economy can only survive on negative real rates, I’m not sure I’m persuaded it’s so fabulous.
Its because the total debt of the US is pushing towards $40 trillion dollars and the interest on that debt is expensive.
Generally speaking, 4% is not high. The Holy Roman Empire learned the hard way when screwing around with high inflation and not putting the inflation fire out.
With that said, is there a reason some of my comments dont get published on here? Im trying to understand why that is.
“Im trying to understand why that is.”
Your silly USA-collapse BS propaganda.
“With that said, is there a reason some of my comments don’t get published on here?”
It happens to me too sometimes. Wolf approves of tariffs. There may well be merit to tariffs in theory, but how can anyone not think the execution and scale of these particular changes has been shambolic? Anyway, the experiment is up and running and we will see how it turns out.
Over here in Australia, I voted in the federal election today. It’s a compulsory, preferential voting system – democracy, but not as the US knows it. Until Trump took office, it looked like the right-wing Coalition may form government, promoting Trump-style polices. Since then, their support has fallen and Labor will probably be re-elected, based on support for the welfare-state health and pensions system, worker rights and a sales tax on everything, not just imports. It’s one thing for Trump to impose his values on Americans, but I don’t think it will work elsewhere.
Hi Dan,
Compare the US and German 10-yr bond, CPI and the FX rates.
Germany used to have it’s “Debt Brake” and has run huge surpluses in Target2 and so effectively acted as a formal and informal creditor to much of the rest of Europe. So I’m thinking that in the past there have been good reasons for understanding low German bond rates.
I don’t know if that will hold true 5 years from now if indeed the debt brake is suspended and they really do plan to spend 800 billion EURO on rearming or whatever.
I hardly understand what is happening in the US. I wouldnt pretend to understand what is happening in Europe.
If you use compounding, prices will double, and thus the value of the dollar will be cut in half in roughly 36 years (rule of 72) at 2% inflation. Compounding works the opposite way when talking about the decline in the value of the dollar: after one year a dollar’s worth 98 cents, the second year 2% of 98 cents is slightly less than 2 cents and so on for 36 years.
If the FED had a clue they would have the FDIC lower the deposit insurance rate back to $100,000. Then they would drain reserves. This would raise the real rate of interest, aka, the “Taper Tantrum”.
Wolf, solid article. Thank you.
In “The weak spot: civilian employment at the federal government” section. You mention that BLS data doesn’t quite capture the full effects of job cuts (e.g., workers on paid leave).
I am currently a federal employee and have seen a large number of my fellow federal employees taking the “Deferred Resignation” program. This program has been offered to the majority of the non-military federal workforce. In a nutshell, if you sign up for the program, you are on paid leave through September. It may be a reasonable estimate that around 150,000+ people have enrolled and been accepted into this program. Granted, a portion of these folks are headed for retirement in tandem with the program. But, come end of September, do you think that could throw a few curveballs our way in the labor market? Or, like you said, perhaps that portion of federal employees isn’t enough to dent the labor market?
There are two data sets here based on two different surveys:
— The establishment survey of employers: nonfarm payrolls and average hourly wages, etc.
— The household survey of households: the labor force, the unemployed, total employment, unemployment rate, etc. Note that the household survey doesn’t care about severance pay.
These two surveys treat the laid-off government employees with severance pay differently. I’ll discuss both because this is interesting.
1. In the establishment survey, laid off government employees with severance pay continue to show up on the “payrolls” until they no longer get paid. And that’s what chart #2 is based on. So government payrolls will drop by, say, these 150,000 people in chart #2.
In terms of total payrolls, those that find another job increase payrolls in that industry, even as government jobs fall, and so there is a shift to the private sector, and we have already seen that, with a net impact of zero.
2. In the household survey, take the retirements out of the group, they left the labor force and no longer count. Then those that found a new job, they show up as employed even if they still draw severance pay. The household survey doesn’t care about severance pay. Those that haven’t found a job but are a looking for a job – even if still on severance pay – count as unemployed. Those that had 2 jobs working from home (the infamous “multiple job holders”), they don’t count as unemployed unless they lose BOTH jobs at the same time.
So it’s going to have a big impact on government employment (chart #2), but not in overall nonfarm payrolls, total employment, the unemployment rate, and unemployment.
I see, that is interesting indeed! Appreciate your insight (and the data to back it up).
If I understand correctly, they are free to take other employment while still nominally employed by the government until September.
So there must be some degree of double-counting in the employment statistics — and effects in the personal income and spending numbers.
The household survey doesn’t double-count – instead it generates “multiple jobholders” if someone has two jobs. The establishment survey double-counts if someone is on the payroll of two companies.
‘Empire of the Summer Moon’ by S.C. Gwynne (not the same as the movie that Decaprio was in), recounts the fierceness of the Comanches and the organic response of the Texas Rangers to protect the settlers at the edge of civilization. It is a fascinating read and astonishing in the violence on both sides – the expansion west was a vision of Americas Manifest Destiny to extend from sea to sea and was regarded as a Devine Right. The fluidity at the boarder has been around from the beginning and the unresolved policy serves everyone- the parties get to campaign and raise money on it perpetually, and when we need a valve to reduce labor costs or prop up asset costs the valve is opened. I wonder if the latest closing of the valve is another form of American land grab as was with the Native Americans- some immigrants have bought properties with mortgages or paid them off. Does displacement force the sale of those properties and is this a policy approach to reduce housing prices? The boarder is just a synonym of our conflicting priorities and shifting morality. It should be pretty simple. Grandfather in if you have been here for 10 years paid taxes, not committed any crimes etc., there should a pathway to some legal residency and any new immigration should be much more clear and immediate on the ramifications of illegal entry.
Output per hour has continued to rise. The FED’s got a handle on both sides of its mandates.
LOL
As they say
“Even a broken clock is right twice a day…”
The Fed does a reasonably competent job in all its auspices. It’s easy to play Tuesday morning quarterback with them, but really, they rarely fail to perform at a B- level.
If they were as competent as you say, the events of the past few years would have looked very different. “Inflation is transitory” was far below B minus performance. Cutting rates 100 basis points into an illusory labor market cooldown was not so hot either.
“they rarely fail to perform at a B- level”……………………clearly some grade inflation going on here.
P.S. Anyone read about the Federal Reserve’s remodeling plans that include rooftop garden terraces, skylights, ornate water features and a new elevator system that drops board members off directly in the VIP dining suite?
Yup, the same Federal Reserve with hundreds of billions of losses, oops make that “earnings remittances due to the U.S. Treasury”
So the numbers keep looking good, why is the mood in the real world so negative about jobs? Everyone I talk is stressed about getting laid off. People who want to leave their job are having a hard time finding new ones. And raises were terrible this year for anyone I know with the exception of healthcare. Why does sentiment not align even closely with the numbers?
partially because sentiment is shaped by the media, at least for the last month or two regarding the supposed catastrophe from tariffs, and also because services inflation is still bad and houses are unaffordable.
if the non house owning population who wants a house can’t afford one, they’re going to be pretty negative.
There are a fair amount of people out there like me who don’t say things because people are so outspoken about how awful the current administration/macro environment is. You can also see it in the UMich data to see the wild difference in people outlooks. I can assure you there are a lot of people who aren’t so outspoken and don’t see things as so dire as the people freaking out.
I have seen charts showing confidence data by political affiliation. Republican confidence is way up, and Democrat confidence is way down. It is a striking difference if true.
Sometimes politically tainted government policy decisions have concrete side effects or under-the-radar future results that don’t show up in current hard data.
For example, when Nixon was straining to show he was cutting government expenses, my father was offered very early retirement (age 52) from NASA (space research program) in order to show superficially that the government budget was being trimmed. But my father’s civil pension was quite lucrative, particularly because his service as a marine in WW2 was added to his decades of civil service work for NASA.
My father also got the same health retirement benefits, and paid extra for the top tier. So, my intuition has always been that the government lost on the deal, since they were fixing up a worker in fat city, without the worker contributing to the research program like they would have if not retired early.
yes, that is a problem. it really stems that government employees should not get pensions anymore, not since they were basically eliminated for the private sector.
i just don’t think a police officer adds enough value in 25 years to be paid for 65, nor do i think teachers have any business retiring at 53.
Why is this interpretation any more valid than the reverse — that pensions ought instead to be mandatory in the private sector as before?
This “crabs in a bucket” race to the bottom is getting us nowhere …
“Labor Market Is Just Fine”
for who?
For the economy, obviously. Record number of people working, making record amounts of money, and spending most of it.