>The slowdown in immigration means the US doesn’t need such robust job gains to keep the unemployment rate stable, suggesting the recent slide in payrolls may not be so worrisome, according to new research from the Federal Reserve Bank of Dallas.
If I'm reading this correctly, the argument being made is that U.S. population is declining now, so the job market shrinking doesn't matter. Isn't that...equally troubling...at least to the same people who are enacting the policies causing this?
toomuchtodo•4mo ago
Fundamentally, if immigration declines, you do not need as many new jobs to keep the labor market in balance. The US population is barely declining at this point, so this wouldn't be an issue until wages climb from labor shortages beyond what the market can bear in each sector being discussed. Based on current US profit data, we have a long way to go, all over the economy (profits are unpaid wages, broadly speaking; lots of room to raise wages based on observable value transfer flows).
There are labor "shortages" in the sense that wages are going up slowly (you see this in Amazon and Bank of America raising their minimum wage to the low $20s), which is new for an economic system and its participants unfamiliar with a population cohort of workers that is starting to shrink and will do so far into the future due to demographic dynamics. With that said, there is still a long way to go to create enough "labor shortage" (workers aging out of prime working age population cohort, reduced immigration) to push wages up to living wages for domestic workers (which is $25-$50/hr, depending on geography and target historical purchasing power parity).
(~4M Boomers retire a year, ~11k/day, ~2M people 55+ die every year, about half of which are in the labor force; that means ~13k-14k workers leave the labor force every day in the US, ~400k/month)
luciferin•4mo ago
If I'm reading this correctly, the argument being made is that U.S. population is declining now, so the job market shrinking doesn't matter. Isn't that...equally troubling...at least to the same people who are enacting the policies causing this?
toomuchtodo•4mo ago
There are labor "shortages" in the sense that wages are going up slowly (you see this in Amazon and Bank of America raising their minimum wage to the low $20s), which is new for an economic system and its participants unfamiliar with a population cohort of workers that is starting to shrink and will do so far into the future due to demographic dynamics. With that said, there is still a long way to go to create enough "labor shortage" (workers aging out of prime working age population cohort, reduced immigration) to push wages up to living wages for domestic workers (which is $25-$50/hr, depending on geography and target historical purchasing power parity).
(~4M Boomers retire a year, ~11k/day, ~2M people 55+ die every year, about half of which are in the labor force; that means ~13k-14k workers leave the labor force every day in the US, ~400k/month)
Citations:
Postpandemic US Immigration Surge: New Facts and Inflationary Implications [pdf] - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=45529166 - October 2025
A Major Bank [Bank of America] Is Upping Pay to $25 an Hour — And Amazon Is Coming Close Too - https://www.entrepreneur.com/business-news/bank-of-america-a... - September 18th, 2025
Amazon spends $1B to increase pay and lower health care costs for US workers - https://apnews.com/article/amazon-pay-health-care-b847655049... - September 18th, 2025
Bank of America's $25/hour minimum wage jump flexes on everyone else - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=45315804 - September 2025
The US Population Could Shrink in 2025, for the first time ever - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=45111228 - September 2025
The demographic future of humanity: facts and consequences [pdf] - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=44866621 - August 2025
Vermont May Be the Face of a Long-Term U.S. Labor Shortage - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=38249820 - November 2023
Dallas Fed blog post mentioned: https://www.dallasfed.org/research/economics/2025/1009
MIT Living Wage Calculator - https://livingwage.mit.edu/
US Census: US & World Population Clock - https://www.census.gov/popclock/
HN Search: labor shortage - https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=false&qu...
(think in systems)