In its latest, July, snapshot of the US economy, the NY Fed observed something startling, and which hasn't received much discussion in the media: when looking at the June report, over the past year the only employment gains have gone to less educated Americans, or as the NY Fed puts it, "over the last year, the employment-to-population ratio has risen for the less educated." It added that "for those with less than a high school degree and for high school graduates, the employment-to-population ratio rose by 0.4 percentage point and 0.9 percentage point, respectively.
Meanwhile, "the employment-to-population ratio for the more highly educated has been on a downward trend, with the ratio for those with a college degree 0.2% percentage point lower in June relative to a year ago."
Now that we have the July data we can update the NY Fed data, and find... more of the same: as the chart below shows, while on both a 1-month and 1-year basis, the Employment-to-Population ratio for workers with "some college" or "a bachelor's degree and higher" declined or remained flat again, the biggest increase on both a 1-month and 1-year basis was for those with "less than a high school diploma" or "high school" graduates.
In retrospect, this should not come as a surprise: in an economy where wage growth is "inexplicably" failing to materialize, in which waiters and bartenders were the hottest hiring sector last month and over the past 7 years, and where part-time workers soared in July, it makes sense that the best job prospects are for those who never went to college. As for the adverse structural consequences for the US economy as a result of lack of demand for those with a college education, that is self-explanatory and is a giant hint as to the unprecedented collapse in US economic productivity in recent years.