In many ways the economy is doing well, but in some other ways not so much.
It was always clear from the demographics that we would have a bit of a labor shortage after the baby boomers started to retire and to some extent that is driving the low unemployment.
However, many of them are not prepared for retirement so I guess they are either staying in their current jobs or finding new ones.
We have seen a transition from a manual labor manufacturing model to a more robotic, technical one and that has disrupted a lot of rust belt jobs. Those jobs aren't coming back even as we add some manufacturing jobs to our lowered base. Unskilled labor is simply not going to command the wages it once did. This is in many ways a positive trend for the economy and growth although not for those specific workers.
The issue there is that the profits are being unequally distributed with the displaced workers getting very little transition assistance as we reduce the Government programs that could have helped them.
This uneven distribution of wealth is probably the greatest threat to our country as it attacks the very foundation of our middle class society.
The best way to fix it is via Government programs as in Europe where certain expenses such as health care and pensions are centralized allowing people to have less expenses.
Of course those type of programs are an attack on wealthy people who would be subsidizing the poor.
Should the Government serve as the provider of certain services or not?
We are somewhere in the middle and right now we are saying no, in general.
However, the level of income inequality shows how our current approach is failing, so the times they may be a changing.
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