Despite the long expansion, Hurst warned that many Americans are still staying out of the workforce. Typically, this kind of worker is someone without a bachelor’s degree and who lives in the Midwest. He argued for more training for many Americans who are being left out of the historic economic expansion.
Hurst also said the central bank can’t solve these “structural problems.” And he praised the Federal Reserve for not overreaching and getting involved with labor issues; for concentrating on inflation, monetary policies, economic growth and “gradually increasing interest rates.”
Fiscal and tax policies could be used to help workers having trouble adjusting to a new economic era, said Hurst. He added that these kinds of labor displacement issues had happened many times before in economic history as nations and economies experienced radical change.
Imaginative solutions are needed: Income support and education are possible ways of helping people who can’t find work or who have given up trying to find work, Hurst said.
“A trade war with China won’t help them,” he argued. “We really need to think about how to help these people.”