The 12-Million-Worker Hole: This Is the Scariest Employment Graph, and Now You Can Play With It

More

In February this year, the U.S. economy added 240,000 jobs. At that pace, we would close the American jobs gap in June 2018. Yes, 2018. In six years and four months.

In March, the economy added only 120,000 jobs. At that pace, we might not close the jobs gap until the end of the decade. No, not this decade. Until the end of the next decade.

Screen Shot 2012-05-01 at 2.56.11 PM.png

The Hamilton Project has created this handy Jobs Gap Calculator, pictured above, which they've kindly shared exclusively with The Atlantic. Here's how to play. Pick a number for one month's new jobs. Let's say 200,000. Plug the figure into the calculator, press go, and presto, you've got the year the U.S. finally emerges from the jobs gap.

The "jobs gap" is the number of people who need to find work in the U.S. economy before we return to pre-recession employment levels while absorbing new adult entrants, aging Millennials, and immigrants. In 2010, the jobs gap bottomed out at 12 million. After the best 12 months of job creation in five years, the gap is still about 11 million. That's the current population of Ohio.

***

NB: We would actually have to grow even faster to get out of the jobs gap if work-force growth weren't slowing. But it is. That's thanks to older working-age people retiring in the next few years and not being fully replaced by immigration and new entrants. The graph below, also from Hamilton, tells the story. A smaller share of Americans will participate in the workforce in the next decade, while the senior population grows by 80%.


Jump to comments

Derek Thompson is a senior editor at The Atlantic, where he oversees business coverage for TheAtlantic.com. More

Thompson has written for Slate, BusinessWeek, and the Daily Beast. He has also appeared as a guest on radio and television networks, including NPR, the BBC, CNBC, and MSNBC.

Get Today's Top Stories in Your Inbox (preview)


Elsewhere on the web

Join the Discussion

After you comment, click Post. If you’re not already logged in you will be asked to log in or register. blog comments powered by Disqus

Video

Miami: The Next Big Start-Up City?

How the city became a center for innovation

Video

Video

A Brief History of Romantic Comedies

From The Atlantic's Chris Orr

Video

Video

Life in 'the New Arctic'

A moving portrait of a fading landscape

Video

Video

The Rise of New York City

A fascinating look at Manhattan in the 1940s

Video

'I Thought It Was Really Funny, but No One Else Did'

A day with New Yorker cartoonist Joe Dator

Video

New Yorkers: The Winemaker

Make your own wine ... in New York City

Video

What Is Methane Hydrate?

"Flaming ice" is a vast natural energy source

Video

NASA's Time-Lapse of the Sun

Now with epic dubstep music

Video

A Video Letter From the Editor

Highlights from the May 2013 issue

Video

Shaken Not Tuned: Cocktail Experiments

Can a tuning fork improve a cocktail?

Video

Video

The Rise of Environmentalism

Tracking 50 years, from the Love Canal disaster to Greenpeace

Video

Is He Cheating? A 1950s Guide

'That little blonde secretary from the office?’

Video

New Yorkers: Vintage Vacuum-Tube Amps

Risking electric shock to restore old amplifiers

Video

The DIY Piano-Bicycle

Everybody needs a hobby

Writers

Up
Down

More in Business

In Focus

2013 National Geographic Traveler Photo Contest