Economy adds 147K jobs, unemployment down to 4.1% | Hacker News Reader

Economy adds 147K jobs, unemployment down to 4.1%

usatoday.com

8 pointsglimshe12 comments

State and local govs soaking up workers (~70k). Good numbers assuming labor force stays balanced with retirements + deaths + job growth outpacing job destruction/loss.

How is it good numbers when they're not creating capital, in fact they're consuming capital? Government isn't an engine for economic growth and innovation. Meanwhile, manufacturing jobs are down - that's important because that's how you create capital. In essence, our ability to create capital has decreased while at the same time our demand for capital, in the form of taxes, has increased. This is not good.

Services provided by government enable civilization, capital growth and accumulation would enable what? Not much benefit to the citizenry based on the evidence. Manufacturing will continue to be automated as much as possible, further investment in manufacturing will not create material job count. Capital creation is a poor metric for potential and citizen quality of life. Jobs that enable people to survive are needed jobs to get them from working age to retirement age (or help them survive while in retirement until death).

Growth is over due to demographics, folks should make peace with that, most especially capitalists. Inflation and taxes will eventually go up, and profits will go down.

https://www.mckinsey.com/mgi/our-research/dependency-and-dep...

https://www.cato.org/cato-journal/spring/summer-2018/demogra...

https://dunham.com/FA/Blog/Posts/demographics-are-destiny

https://www.sas.upenn.edu/~jesusfv/Slides_London.pdf

https://www.suerf.org/wp-content/uploads/2023/12/f_fa99ccdbe...

(demographics are destiny)

That's a different statement than claiming they are good numbers. We're shifting capital production to capital consumption. That's not a viable long-term strategy. Great, it solved their employment problem in June. Now what?

We disagree on what good looks like, that's all. I care about humans, you care about capital. There is no long term strategy except a slow burn economically as populations rapidly age and decline over the next 100-150 years. Capital does not serve the human, broadly speaking, based on the evidence. It enslaves, always demanding more (4x productivity in growth in the last half century but 4 day work week is laughed at as unreasonable, for one example).

Figure out a strategy without growth and capitalism, because demographics will force it to happen. Also, importantly, be wise with the labor remaining looking forward; you'll never get it back at the scale previously had.

https://dunham.ghost.io/content/images/2024/04/2.JPG

https://rajawali.hks.harvard.edu/articles/a-rapidly-aging-wo...

(~4M Boomers retire a year, ~11k/day, ~2M people 55+ die every year, about half of which are in the labor force; that means ~13k-14k workers leave the labor force every day in the US)

I care about capital because I care about humans - that's how capitalism works. I didn't create this system, but we both have to work within its confines. We can abandon it and change it, but that's going to require a revolution which will have a high cost in human lives. Let's not forget that. We may also end up with a system that's worse.

Also, as populations dwindle then the need for governance dwindles as well. So, our population is dwindling and we're shifting more of the people to government? That's not a viable strategy.

Not everyone is going to work for the government. I expect a continuing increase in healthcare jobs and workers. Jobs for providing for the human, not jobs for capital aggregation.

https://www.bls.gov/ooh/healthcare/

https://www.shrm.org/topics-tools/news/hr-quarterly/us-labor...

https://altarum.org/news-and-insights/health-care-employment...

> In line with recent trends, the health care industry is expected to add more new jobs than any other industry over the next ten years. As shown in Figure 1, health care is projected to add 1.6 million jobs from 2023 to 2033, which is approximately 24% of all jobs expected to be added to the economy. The health care industry is also anticipated to be the third fastest-growing industry, with a growth rate of 9.0%.

Given the bill that just passed that cuts Medicaid and Medicare funding, how do you suppose that healthcare jobs will increase?

I suppose a lot of people are going to die prematurely instead of getting care. That’s a policy choice. Have a conservation with your Congressional rep about it, if it matters to you.

Do you think you can convince people of reproductive age to have kids in this environment? Or do you think people are going to opt out while the wealthy get wealthier? This will speed the decline of US total fertility rate, out of self preservation in a socioeconomic environment that provides no support to parents and the poor.

https://www.axios.com/local/dallas/2025/07/03/snap-medicaid-...

https://www.axios.com/2025/07/03/trump-big-beautiful-bill-sn...

https://www.axios.com/2025/07/01/real-cost-health-coverage-l...

How Health Care Remade the U.S. Economy - https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2025/07/03/business/econ... | https://archive.today/5RzAb - July 3rd, 2025

The Rise of Healthcare Jobs - https://www.nber.org/papers/w33583 - March 2025

Government isn't what?

Government provides a large number of services, from education to firefighting. I can see why one might see education as a drain on the economy on any timescale up to a decade, but if you want to have an educated workforce in 30-50 years you can't really escape paying for education now, even if it is costly.

Which of the services provided by government do you see as a net drain on the economy?

It's not nearly so black and white as you present it.

A highway is government-created capital that generates economic growth. A library is government-created capital that generates innovation and economic growth. A fire station (which is also government-created capital) doesn't directly create economic growth or innovation, but it protects everyone's capital.

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