If unemployment is at 4% in 2016 and a surplus is projected by the CBO just a couple years after...
Wow.. here's hoping. Do you really anticipate that? (I mean, I have been talking 'cyclical boom on the way', but haven't really entirely believed it)
I have no pessimism on the economy. There's no real bubble out there to burst. We have nowhere to go but up.
The big thing is the unemployment rate by education. Everybody with Bachelor's degrees or higher are pretty much reaching full employment. The brunt of what we have to re-employ are those with only high school and trade education. I'm bullish that it will get done for three reasons:
(1) home construction orders are on the up and ups, once it gets seriously started in the spring, jobs in that sector will boom
(2) it's been so many years from the crash that many people who needed to retrain for employment are about finished with that schooling and can move into better markets
(3) my biggest reason, however, that few talk about, is how Obamacare will get rid of full-time workers in food service and retail. That sounds like a bad thing, but traditionally people in these jobs have been able to work shifts at two locations during a week. I know quite a few age 35-40 career waiter types who have gone from working multiple restaurants to being only at one that chose to kept them during the recession.
Restaurants and stores going from carrying 5 cooks or cashiers or whatever at 40 hours/week each to 10 at 20 hours/week will get blood pumping in these jobs. Better yet, business owners are generally a lot more willing to expand at the first sign of increasing business with part-time so it could be we'll go from 5 @ 40 hr/wk to 15 @ 20 hr/wk. A net gain in workers and total hours hired. The loss of fulltime hours by the original 5 can easily be restored at another business. This will be huge for the economy.
