Musings on 25-54 Employment-to-Population Rates and the Macroeconomy: Daily Focus
(1) If the US economy were operating at its productive potential, the share of 25 to 54-year-olds who are employed ought to be what it was at the start of 2000. Back then there were few visible pressures leading to rising inflation in the economy.
Does anybody disagree with that?
(2) Right now, 25 to 54-year-olds–both male and female–are employed at a rate lower by 5%-age points then they were at the start of 2000. That’s 6.5%, or 1/15, more 25-54 labor at work than we have today.
Does anybody disagree with that?
(3) Even if you think–in spite of the absence of accelerating inflation–that employment in 2000 was above the economy’s long-term sustainable potential, there is no reason to believe that a U.S. economy firing on all cylinders would not have 25-54 employment to population rates–both male and female–back at their 2006 levels, a full 3%-age points–and 4%, 1/25–higher than today.
Does anybody disagree with that?
(4) The U.S. economy’s convergence towards its potential is very slow: The 25-54 employment-to-population ratio has only risen by 1%-point over the past two years.
Does anybody disagree with that?
(5) Yet in spite of all these, the Federal Reserve believes that the U.S. economy is now close enough to its productive potential that unless some more things go wrong it is no longer appropriate for it to be buying assets and it will be appropriate for it in a year to start raising interest rates even though inflation is still below its 2%/year target.
The only way to square (1) through (4) with (5) is if the Greater Crash of 2008-2009 and the still-ongoing Lesser Depression really have pushed between 2 and 4%-age points of our 25 to 54-year-olds out of the labor force permanently, so that we can never get them back, or at least never get them back without an economy at such high pressure to produce inflation that the Federal Reserve regards as unacceptable.
This may be true.
But it does raise two questions:
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What has made the Federal Reserve so confident that it is true that it is willing to make policy based on it–especially as current inflation is still below the 2%/year target?
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If it is true that the missing 2 to 4%-age points of 25 to 54-year-olds now out of the labor force could not be pulled back in without allowing inflation to rise above it’s 2%/year target, isn’t that an argument for raising the 2%/year target rather than accepting the current 77% 25-54 employment to population ratio as the economy’s limit of potential?
Macroeconomics, Labor Force Participation, Federal Reserve, Monetary Policy, Lesser Depression, Greater Crash, Hysteresis
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