Probably the two most-cited economic problems in the U.S. are: Long-term demographic headwinds, and U.S. unemployment.
But good news! Those problems cancel each other out.
Investor, engineer, and amateur economist Matt Busigin explained on Twitter.
Everyone is talking about intergenerational war, class war...reality is closer to symbiosis, and we could get even closer yet.
— Matt Busigin (@mbusigin) March 8, 2013
When your two biggest problems are unemployment and a large generation wanting to retire, this is an opportunity & solveable problem.
— Matt Busigin (@mbusigin) March 8, 2013
Not everyone has such neatly intersecting problems whose solutions solve for each other.The United States does.
— Matt Busigin (@mbusigin) March 8, 2013
In other words, the ongoing departure of folks from the workforce and into retirement is creating both new job opportunities, and a demand for new workers.
Today's jobs report showed it perfectly.
First of all, we got a nice jump in Non-Farm Payrolls. At 236K, it is one of the best months since the recession.
 FRED |
And a big part of that jump was due to a gain in health care jobs, which is an industry that benefits massively from our aging
Look how steady health care employment grows. It just keeps going up.
 FRED |
And yet, Labor Force Participation Rate continues to decline, in large part due to demographics.
 FRED |
So we have one issue, aging demographics, that's helping to take care of another issue, unemployment, by both creating openings in the workforce and creating a booming health care industry that creates tons of jobs every month.