The best proxy for improved economy would be based on how much income is being taxed at the federal level.
Otherwise, a job as a barista counts the same as a job as a brain surgeon. Clearly, the relative worth added to the economy is quite different, and that difference would be reflected in the difference in incomes.
Otherwise, a job as a barista counts the same as a job as a brain surgeon. Clearly, the relative worth added to the economy is quite different, and that difference would be reflected in the difference in incomes.
OTOH a job as a barista is - a job. If that’s your aspiration - or a necessary interim step towards your actual aspiration - it is as important to you as some MD getting a high paying gig is to him/her. And that matters to society.All very well, BTW, to say that “there are more jobs open than there are unemployed people to fill them. That’s great, but it doesn’t mean what it seems on face value. In the real world a million job openings for brain surgeons doesn’t help the guy who’s glad to get a job as a barista.
IMHO the bottom line is that there is always infinite opportunity - for people with (even relatively) unlimited talents. There are people who have a knack for finding a way to be useful, and for whom “unemployment” is something they’ve heard of but never really experienced. And then there are people who, as the Democrats put it, “don’t want to work.”
And then there are people whose skills obsolesce - when a steel mill closes, etc. And who are neither in the former category nor the latter. They deeply want and diligently prepared themselves for work, on the one hand - and, OTOH, adaptation to changed circumstances is challenging for them. People do get to be 55 and 60 years old . . .