Rising Graduate Joblessness Is Mainly Affecting Men

John Burn-Murdoch   Financial Times

Date Posted:July 16, 2025Is Database: Database

The 2024 rise in CA’s minimum wage in fast food restaurants from $16 to $20 raised the sector’s wages ~8% and lowered its employment by 2 to 4% relative to the US sector overall, with an estimated loss of 18,000 CA fast food jobs. @jeffreypclemens

We analyze the effect of California's $20 fast food minimum wage [up from $16], which was enacted in September 2023 and went into effect in April 2024, on employment in the fast food sector. We document that AB 1228 increased wages substantially, with a roughly 8% increase in California’s fast food sector relative to the fast food sector elsewhere in the country. In unadjusted data from the Quarterly Census of Employment and Wages, we find that employment in California's fast food sector declined by 2.7% relative to employment in the fast food sector elsewhere in the United States from September 2023 through September 2024. In Figures 1b, 1c, and 1d, for which each series has been indexed relative to September 2023, the magnitude of the relative decline through late 2024 is readily observed from the graphs as being on the order of 2 to 4%. Indexing, detrending, and seasonally adjusting the data make the series more visually comparable but do not substantively alter the relative movements that underlie our regression estimates. Our median estimate translates into a loss of 18,000 jobs in California's fast food sector relative to the counterfactual.Related: The U.S. Low-Wage Structure: A McWage Comparison and Do Minimum Wages Reduce Job Opportunities for Blacks? and Why Do Labor Unions Advocate for Minimum Wage Increases?

Date Posted:July 15, 2025Is Database: Database

During the pandemic era “Great Retirement Boom,” >2.4mm people retired in excess of trend, @mfariacastro finds. As of 2024, retirements had reverted to their prepandemic trend.

Using CPS data, the figure shows the share of the population that is retired. The linear trend line fitted to the data from June 2008 to February 2020—is designed to represent the retirement share based on demographic trends, in the absence of economic fluctuations and other factors that could affect people’s decisions to retire or not (such as a public health emergency like COVID-19). The trend is estimated starting in 2008—the first year in which the oldest baby boomers turned 62 and thus became eligible to collect Social Security benefits—and ending in February 2020, which is the final full month before the outbreak of the COVID-19 pandemic in the U.S. The retirement share increased at a roughly linear rate between 2008 and 2020, reflecting the baby boomer generation reaching retirement age. Pre-2020, the retirement share closely follows the trend line, orbiting above or below the linear trend within narrow bounds.Related: Pandemic Labor Force Participation and Net Worth Fluctuations and Another ‘Great Retirement’ Wave Hits the US After Stocks Rally and Analysis of the 2024 Social Security Trustees’ Report

Date Posted:June 20, 2025Is Database: Database

The American manufacturing trade deficit in 2024 was $1.2T. Robert Lawrence estimates that closing it would increase the share of manufacturing employment from 7.9% to 9.7% an increase of 1.7pp.

In 2024, total US value added in manufacturing was $2.913 trillion. Thus, the manufacturing value added in the trade deficit equaled 21.5% of US production. Had Americans maintained the same level of spending but met their demand with additional domestic production rather than through imports, manufacturing production would have been 21.5% larger. Even if the tariffs and other trade policies eliminate the US manufacturing trade deficit by switching US purchases from foreign to domestic goods, the share of manufacturing employment in total US employment would increase by just 1.7 percentage points, from 7.9 to 9.7%, and the share of workers in production occupations in US manufacturing would increase by just under 0.9 percentage point, from 3.85 to 4.7%. These results point to the dangers of exaggerating the gains that policies directed at closing the trade deficit are likely to induce. The US manufacturing trade deficit of $1.2 trillion is a large number, but it is a relatively small share of an economy with a GDP of $29.1 trillion in 2024. The changes in employment with balanced trade would be far too small to produce a labor market that significantly increases the opportunities for men without college degrees.Related: A Note on Trade Deficits and Manufacturing and China is Suffering its Own ‘China Shock’ and The Mysterious Slowdown in U.S. Manufacturing Productivity