Barnichon and Mesters (2017) also present evidence that demographic changes have somewhat reduced the structural unemployment rate in the United States in recent years. Relatedly, Yoon, Kim, and Lee (2014) and Juselius and Takats (2015) estimate that ongoing demographic transitions are having modest disinflationary effects in the United States and other developed economies.
9 The statistical evidence also suggests that the sustainable rate of unemployment could be higher. As illustrated by the results reported in Reifschneider, Wascher, and Wilcox (2015) and Barnichon and Matthes (2017), standard errors for estimates of the sustainable rate of unemployment are typically at least 1/2 percentage point.