Retirees, Teens Drive Labor Trends

Retirees and Youngsters: Remember those looming economic trends people have been talking about as U.S. baby boomers approach retirement? Don’t look now, but those changes already are taking place. Economists at the Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis note that although there are more people in the U.S. labor force than ever, the rate of growth of the labor market is estimated to begin declining during the next decade. That in turn betokens a potential drop in Americans’ standard of living, with “fewer workers generating goods, services and income,” according to economists Riccardo DiCecio, Michael T. Owyang, Christopher H. Wheeler and researcher Kristie M. Engemann. Coupled with a projected decline in the number of working teenagers, this suggests that “successive generations will be unable to compensate for the baby boomers’ exit” from the U.S. labor pool.