Jobs numbers, immigrants in healthcare, and ... Jesus Christ?

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0:12This is The Indicator from Planet Money. I'm Waylon Wong here with the astounding Adrienne Ma. What's up? Hi, Adrienne. And we are joined by the dapper Darian Woods. Thank you. And happy Valentine's Day to you both. In America, I've learned you can say that to people who are not your lovers. And you can also give it to things that are not humans, like indicators of the week. On today's episode, we do not have flowers for you, but we do have... An analysis of new job numbers hot off the griddle. A policy that might just save our elders. And his only forgotten son returns. Or at least people are betting on that.

0:57More on that after the break.

1:02It's Indicators of the Week. Adrian Ma, you are first. So my indicator comes from the latest Bureau of Labor Statistics jobs report. A few days late because of the partial government shutdown, but better late than never. And the number is 130 ,000. 130 ,000 is the number of jobs the BLS estimates were added to the US economy in January. So we talked last Friday about what even is a strong jobs number in this economy. We were saying tens of thousands was pretty good these days because of the Declining growth in the working age population 130, that sounds pretty strong This is awkward because we just retired the air horn But this is, in the olden times, an air horn worthy number Yeah, so what do we do in lieu of an air horn?

1:56Like a different sound? Snaps Snaps, or what about an old fashioned car horn? A-Wool-Gah, A-Wool-Gah That would appease the people who found the side effects too annoying. Mature auga. So on top of auga-worthy jobs numbers, the unemployment rate in January also ticked down from 4.4 % to 4.3%. And for some economists, this latest report suggests that the job market might be stabilizing after a year of lackluster hiring. Well, that's great. It is. And just to expand on the lack of luster in last year's hiring situation, this also made an appearance in the jobs report, which had a big revision to the net number of jobs created last year.

2:44So the revised estimate is 181 ,000 jobs created, which is almost, get this, 70 % lower than its initial estimate. We have been seeing these huge revisions lately. They're really keeping us on our toes. So maybe the takeaway from this report is that 2025 was pretty meh, but January bucks the trend. Yes, it does seem that way for now. I mean, there are still clouds hanging over the job market, like job posts are down, and AI is still threatening to displace workers. And of course, there's still uncertainty kind of spilling out from some of President Trump's policies around things like immigration and tariffs.

3:27But overall, pretty good jobs report. And particularly one sector of hiring looked really strong, which was healthcare. Awuga. Yes. Awuga for that, because more than half of the jobs created last month were in healthcare. Well, I got a little excited. Sorry about the random awuga I shouted right there. Never apologize for an old-timey horn sound effect. But my indicator is about healthcare jobs. I got super excited. My number is 5 ,000. That is how many elderly lives could be saved every year by allowing a net 25 % increase in immigration to the U.S. Because some of those newcomers could fill, you know, some of these health care jobs.

4:125 ,000 lives. I got this number from a new economics working paper. The authors are David Grabowski of Harvard Medical School, Jonathan Gruber of MIT, and Brian McGarry from the University of Rochester. So 5 ,000 lives saved a year. That sounds pretty significant. Yeah. The paper called this finding a, quote, striking and statistically meaningful decline in elderly mortality. That is like the economist equivalent of screaming from the rooftops. For sure. It's like the economist. It's significant. They're like saying. And I want the world to know it. And I know. I want everyone to know. I don't care who knows.

4:47Actually, I do care who knows. I want everybody to know. All right. So here's what they want you to know. Around 18 % of all health care workers in the U.S. are immigrants. So it's already an industry that employs lots of foreign-born workers. And then you see even larger proportions of immigrants in certain fields like nursing homes and home health care. We know we need even more health care workers to take care of the aging population. Yeah, we do. And this paper says upping the flow of immigrants to the U.S. would lead to more foreign health care workers. Interestingly, they say there would be more U.S.-born doctors too, possibly because employers can add more doctors when they have support staff.

5:26So they're saying that these immigrants are not taking away jobs from U.S.-born workers. Yeah, that's what this paper is saying. Now, the researchers say it's not automatic that more immigrant health care workers would lead to better outcomes for elderly patients because there might be language barriers or xenophobia. But these researchers' numbers do show improved outcomes. For example, they found that increased immigration led to less use of nursing homes. And there's evidence suggesting that elderly patients prefer to be cared for at home rather than in an institution. Right. Happier seniors, better health outcomes.

6:01Yeah. I mean, reality is, of course, going to be more complicated than what's presented in one paper. But I thought it was a very interesting finding. Thank you very much, Waylon. And Darian, bring us home. What do we got? My indicator is 4%, which is the probability of Jesus Christ returning to Earth this year. At least at the time of this recording. That is what the odds say on the betting website, Polymarket. That is higher than I would have thought. So this is what people are betting is that Jesus Christ will come back. They're giving it 4 % odds. I love the audacity of betting on what is literally a black swan event.

6:41Maybe the ultimate black swan event. Yes. And this holy wager is getting a lot of interest. Millions of dollars have poured in. And you might ask, are the odds of Jesus returning really 4 %? It might seem a little high. All I know is the Bible says that the day of the Lord will come like a thief in the night. So I think it's very hubristic that anyone is making these kinds of predictions. Well, you know what? I think some of these bettas may not actually have a view that Jesus is returning this year. It's a strategic... Are they agnostic? Jesus is coming back as a resurrected Lord and Savior. You might be surprised, but I think a lot of these bettas are playing a bit of a financial game here.

7:27They're making a strategic bet because there is another bet you can make on Polymarket where you can bet on those original odds. So in this other game of gambling, you can bet that this original Jesus Christ bet will show a probability of a second coming as above 15 % in mid-February. So you can bet on the bet itself? Yeah, betting on the bet. They call that a derivative. So you might not believe that Jesus Christ is going to return from the sky, but you might believe that enough other people might believe that he is, and you can make money on that. It sounds like this could really result in some financial shenanigans.

8:08I'm sure there are financial quants who have a plan to make money from this as we speak. But you know, this whole thing does show the limitations of betting markets, and especially for these black swan low probability events. But I should point out that generally speaking, for more earthly matters, betting markets are very accurate. A working paper recently tallied up the numbers, and they found that traders at the betting market Kalshi, the prediction website, they were perfect at predicting how the Fed would move interest rates the day before the Fed announcement. And you might recall that the polymarket also had high odds for Trump's re-election, and that obviously came true.

8:49Not to go a youth pastor on you guys, but you know what the Bible says is the beginning of wisdom? Tell me. Fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom, not what they say on Kalshi. Well, we should follow up on this at some point. There's another saint I want to thank, which is Saint Valentine, for a wonderful Indicators of the Week. Thanks, guys. All hail. I don't think that's what you say to Saint Valentine. All hail Saint Valentine. Yeah, that's very metal. This episode was produced by Angel Carreras with engineering by Robert Rodriguez. It was fact-checked by Vito Emanuel and Cooper Katsby-Kim.

9:26Kate Concanon edits the show, and The Indicator is a production of NPR.