Yes, the Odds Are That Structural Unemployment in the U.S. Has Started to Rise

Live at The Economist:

Q: Is America facing an increase in structural unemployment?

A: Yes, but there is still time to prevent a big rise: David Altig of the Federal Reserve Bank of Atlanta has just convinced me that the answer to this question is "yes": given the large recent increase in vacancies in the past two quarters, the US unemployment rate ought to have started to fall. It did not.

That means that the chances are now very high that our cyclical unemployment is starting to...