Justin Fox, Columnist

Older Workers, Lobsters and R&D: A Year in Charts

Here's a look back at some favorite data from 2017.

December 26, 2017 at 5:38 PM UTC

Justin Fox is a Bloomberg Opinion columnist covering business, economics and other topics involving charts. A former editorial director of the Harvard Business Review, he is author of “The Myth of the Rational Market.”

A big year.
Photographer: Justin Sullivan/Getty Images

Provide news feedback or report an error

Site feedback:

Take our Survey

I like charts! I like looking at them. I like making them. I often rely on them to see me through on days when I'm feeling less opinionated than an opinion columnist probably should. So for the second year in a row, I'm going to revisit five of my favorite chart-heavy columns of the past 12 months, and update them where possible.

Trump Isn't the Only Older Worker Staying on the Job. With a 70-year-old having just moved into the White House, I took a look in February at the labor-force participation rate of Americans 65 and older. The percentage of those in that age group who either have jobs or are actively looking for them (that's what the labor-force participation rate is) had been rising since the 1990s. With 10 months more data, though, it is now looking as if the rate may have stopped rising.