As of October 2024, the U.S. unemployment rate is 4.1%.
During almost all of the period since 1960, the unemployment rate was 5% or higher, and peaked in the early 1980s, just as the peak of baby boom births 20 years earlier, were entering the job market, and then again in 2008-2010 as the baby boom “echo” (children of baby boom parents) were entering the job market (and also during The Great Recession).
U.S. fertility rates, over time – add 20 years to each peak here to see the peak that would exist 20 years after peak birth rates:
