This is always interesting. When I was young, we always talked about the unemployment rate. It was probably always a bad indicator, but it's a really bad one now.
https://apnews.com/article/economy-jobs-trump-unemployment-rate-jobseekers-9c2d147c14bc428458be5a1e83e54957
QuoteThe 4.1% unemployment rate was the lowest since June 2025—but it dropped for the wrong reasons: Fewer people were competing for work, as 264,000 dropped out of the labor market. The share of those working or looking for work fell to 61.4%, the lowest since February 2021.
Reporting elsewhere says that the decreased Labor Force Participation Rate was driven almost entirely by low LFPR among the 55+ crowd, especially the 65+ crowd, as well as low participation among the 20-24 cohort.
The "prime years" cohort actually has seen a slight increase.