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Am I the only one who feels like still using employment rate as a metric for a healthy economy is basically just gaslighting at this point?

Employment used to mean you had a good chance of affording a home, maybe two kids, and potentially even on just a single income. Now you can have a full time job and still need food stamps or a side job just to pay bills.

Then of course, because salaries are so low relative to the cost of living, it makes employment numbers look even better because people who wouldn't have been forced to work now are. You have households where both parents have full time jobs, people with disabilities forced to work because they can't cover bills, students dropping out of college because it's now unaffordable.

Then some goober economist comes on TV and goes "well, unemployment is at record lows so obviously everything is fine"