We see all of the rosy claims coming from the Federal government about unemployment rates yet around us we see no one can buy a home, young people have resigned themselves to living with their parents, and the deficit this year has climbed at a rate that is unprecedented.

It's because government unemployment statistics only tally people who get unemployment, and unemployment checks expire. It does not count people who have given up or who are chronically unemployed but that shows we have been in a period of stagnation for almost 10 years. 

Labor Day is about to arrive but since 2009 it has become less meaningful than ever. U.S. labor force participation at 62 percent and declining, which means it could soon be below 50 percent.

"Young adults entering the U.S. workforce this Labor Day could spend as many as half of their prime working years in a society where most people don't work," said Moshe Vardi, Rice University's Karen Ostrum George Distinguished Service Professor of Computational Engineering
And that's just due to botched economic policy in Washington, D.C. Robotics will mean we have some manufacturing output that remains in the United States, but it won't require people.

Increased centralized control of employment could mean that the few who have jobs are being served in a "gig economy" by the have-nots. They will be independent contractors in three different fields. But one Presidential candidate wants to put an end to those jobs also, believing that by killing innovation that is designed to work around government restrictions, they will force a national minimum wage of $15 per hour on companies.

The steel industry has the benefit of history and would likely object. There is good news to a stagnant economy. The latest reports showed illegal immigration declined from 2009 on - America is no longer a better life. And unemployment plus the loss of tax havens in Ireland will mean the U.S. could soon be cheap labor again. 

http://podcasts.ox.ac.uk/humans-machines-and-future-work