Broken Labor Markets and Shattered Progress
Commentary
Please forgive me for not watching the State of the Union address last night. There is only so much phony baloney I can stand, and I knew in advance that it was going to be a lot of blather about how great the economy is based on the unemployment rate. The thing is that the usefulness of this number—which was a go-to proxy for economic health since the 1930s—is utterly useless.
What must it be like for the average person working two or three gig jobs, perhaps married with a young kid for whom child care is not available at any affordable price so therefore mom cannot hold a job, to listen to the U.S. president go on about how great he is making life for everyone? I suppose at this late date, hardly anyone with a brain believes anything they see on the TV, so there is that….