, Columnist
Unemployment Hits a Low. Then Comes the Recession.
The U.S. labor market might still have some slack in it. Let's hope so.
A sign of the times.
Photographer: Joe Raedle/Getty Images
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Whatever one might think about the U.S. political situation, it’s hard to deny that the economy is doing just fine. In April, the unemployment rate dropped to 3.9 percent, a 17-year low. At this point, there’s a job opening for every unemployed person in the country. Not bad.
In the spirit of seeing the glass as half empty, though, it’s worth asking whether this state of affairs portends something more ominous. For economists, the unemployment rate has always been a lagging indicator: It’s like looking in the rear-view mirror. It tells us where the economy was in the not-too-distant past.