The Workforce Math No Longer Adds Up

Happy Friday! A couple of charts this morning to put America's labor force crisis in context.

First, let this one sink in.

A century sounds like a long time - it isn't. And one reason the American "business model" worked for that century is simple: we had a lot of working-age people. That's no longer true. Nearly 1 in 5 Americans is now 65 or older.

And people over 65 don't tend to work. That's not a knock - it's the dream. Retire, move to Boca, play golf, take cruises. The data backs it up.

Labor force participation falls off a cliff when Americans turn 65. This is what corporate finance calls a "mix" problem - and it's not just jargon. When your low-margin product grows faster than your high-margin one, margins compress. America is running that same playbook, except the "products" are people and the "margin" is whether they are looking for work.

This mix shift is happening at epic scale, and it raises hard questions we're not asking loudly enough: Even if older Americans want to work - and many will have to when Social Security gets cut - can they compete for higher-income jobs as AI raises the bar? Will employers hire 70-year-old interns and actually invest in training them?

This is a real problem. Let me know what you think - your idea might become something we publish.