Say Hello to Full Employment

This morning, the Labor Department announced that the national unemployment rate ticked up to 4 percent in June for good reasons, as hundreds of thousands more Americans sought work. For the first time in recorded history, the number of job openings is higher than the number of people looking for a job. That has raised hopes that wage growth might finally begin to pick up, with employers bidding more to attract new workers and offering raises to retain their existing staff.

Full employment — that magical economic state, in which everyone who wants work has it, and at a good wage too — finally seems to be near. In much of Iowa, it already is. Out of every 100 people who want a job, 98 or 99 have one. The rate of wage growth has doubled of late, and businesses are scrambling to find workers. “It does feel like things are a little different in the last year,” Elisabeth Buck, the president of the United Way of Central Iowa, told me. “Businesses are getting a little desperate.”

In that,