The Skills Gap that Always Explains Unemployment

Donald Trump went to Wisconsin today to tout the virtues of apprenticeship programs, which he claimed would give workers the skills they need to fill available jobs. Fortunately, the NYT had a good piece by Noam Scheiber that pointed out there is little evidence to support the view that the economy is suffering from a serious skills shortage.

The skills shortage is a recurring theme which businesses and pundit types routinely use to blame unemployment on workers rather than a lack of jobs in...