Reading the paper

I spend a good bit of my Sundays (and every day, I admit) perusing various "newspapers." (Can I still call them that, now that I do all this reading online?)

In today's Washington Post, the reliable and sometimes wise E.J. Dionne, is bemoaning a deficit of hope in the United States.

He needs to read his fellow opinion columnists. Heather Long offers a wonderfully upbeat discussion of what our (maybe) close to full employment economy is meaning to people who have been used to getting the short stick.

Click to enlarge.

The mistaken notion that Americans don’t want to work can now be put to rest. Nearly 81 percent of Americans ages 25 to 54 are working, the highest share since 2001. What has been particularly jaw-dropping is how resilient job gains have been since March 2022, when the Federal Reserve started aggressively hiking interest rates. Back then, Fed Chair Jerome H. Powell argued the labor market was “unhealthy.” There was a misguided belief that it would take a recession to get supply and demand for goods — and workers — back to more normal levels. But what many experts missed was how many workers of color and immigrants wanted to work and were still looking for opportunities.

Fewer White people are employed now than pre-pandemic. In contrast, over 2 million more Hispanics are employed now, over 800,000 more Asian Americans and over 750,000 more African Americans. This same trend played out just before the pandemic. Companies were also complaining then that they could not find workers, and experts were saying the nation was at “full employment.” Yet month after month, Black and Hispanic people (largely women) kept entering the labor force and getting jobs. It’s also notable that over 2 million more foreign-born people are employed now than before the pandemic. This means that more than half of the new workers have been immigrants.

If the U.S. economy ends up having a soft landing, it will largely be because immigrants and people of color have kept entering the labor force — helping to keep production going, consumption solid and wage growth (and inflation) cooling to a more sustainable level.

What’s going on is partly a result of low unemployment, what economists often dub a “tight” labor market. Black and Hispanic people often do not get hired until late in a recovery. In the past year, there has also been a strong uptick in jobs in government and health care, sectors in which women of color have historically found employment opportunities. Employers have also expanded their hiring searches, improved pay and benefits, and removed requirements for college degrees for many positions. All of this has helped expand opportunities. This past spring, for the first time, Black Americans were as likely to be employed as White Americans.

Long goes on to ask, why is employment down among older white men? The decline is most male. Perhaps because the Boomer generation, so much whiter than contemporary America, is retiring? In any case, the health of the labor market inspires hope:

How many more people could find jobs? And why aren’t policymakers trying to find out?

Right question. And let's be glad for the excellent rise in jobs being filled by people who look like the country that is.