One of the most important metrics to be looked at in judging the health of the economy is the labor participation rate. It didn't do as well in 2017 as I would have liked, though it did hold its own and stop bleeding. Any predictions what 2018 holds in store for this metric?
It is not going to move much. The reason is it mostly went up due to Baby Boomers retiring and they are unlikely to unretire. There are some people in their prime working years who are out of the labor market. The majority of those are women with children and I can see them returning to the job market once their kids are old enough for school. The prime working age men who are not working are mostly just bums or people who do not want to move to where the work is. Anything to force them to get a job, any job, would be a good thing. Lastly, the broken housing market, mostly due to extremely restrictive local and state level land use laws, really is causing a housing crisis as prices skyrocket and new building doesn't even cover 10% of demand. The NIMBYs need to have their wings clipped and state laws need to force municipalities to allow denser construction in order to ease the crisis. If you do that then more people would be willing to move to where the jobs are and we will see much more economic dynamism as housing costs go down freeing up money for other things.
