By now everyone knows the Fed is not planning on rate cuts in March but most people don’t understand what’s going on right now but we continue our theory.
Demographics & Labor Depletion
By now you’ve heard us say 10,000 boomer retire every day and about 5,000 die from a variety of causes but we haven’t spoken too much on the other end of the spectrum which is young people coming into the labor force.
We know that universities have the lowest incoming classes in years and recent data from National Student ClearingHouse show enrollments creeping up by 1.2 percent however most of those seem to be at the 2 year college degree program. The 4 year university enrollments appear to be steady but that’s not enough to offset the retiring and expiring baby boomer labor force.
Autism
According to this data from the CDC, there continues to be a very high growth of young people identified on the autism spectrum. There is also this note in the link, “About 1 in 6 (17%) children aged 3–17 years were diagnosed with a developmental disability, as reported by parents, during a study period of 2009-2017. These included autism, attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder, blindness, and cerebral palsy, among others.”
If you’re wondering why Universities are struggling to fill millions of empty college seats and why businesses have millions of jobs open (9.03 million as of latest JOLTS report) then it’s time to take a holistic look at all factors impacting the labor force.
Other Diseases
The problem doesn’t stop at autism either. The growth rate for diabetes has been exploding over the past decade and the stats are sobering:
- 38.4 million people have diabetes—that’s 11.6% of the US population.
- 29.7 million people have been diagnosed with diabetes.
- 8.7 million people who have diabetes have not been diagnosed and do not know they have it.
Cancer growth has also been on the uptrend according to the CDC and while advances in medicine mean it’s not a death sentence, the toll on medical treatment on the economy and businesses is staggering.
We’ll continue researching this topic and ways to optimize our investment portfolio around it so stay tuned, stay profitable and stay solvent…