Multiple Job Holders Represent a Still-Untapped Labor Reserve

The Office of Management and Budget is due to release tax and spending plans for the 2018 fiscal year soon. As reported recently by the Wall Street Journal, the plans are expected to be based on relatively optimistic growth forecasts of 3 to 3.5 percent per year, well above consensus estimates. The debate over the realism of the budget plan will turn, to a significant degree, on whether there are a sufficient reserves of untapped labor to support higher growth rates.

Although the headline unemployment rate is approaching levels that the Fed and many other observers equate with "full employment," other indicators, not so well known, suggest that there are still significant untapped labor reserves. This post looks at one such neglected indicator, multiple job holders. (In a post earlier this month, I looked at another neglected indicator, nonemployment index, which also suggests the existence of hidden labor reserves.) >>> 

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