I can't think of anything special about this instant, but look at prevailing conditions: the employment-to-population rate has plummeted in recent years [1]. The number of zero-margin-product people on disability has skyrocketed [2]. Income inequality has increased markedly [3]. Yet our GDP has increased tremendously during that time [4].

We just don't need as many person-hours as we used to need. The trend is only going to continue. Except in the case of people with exceptional cognitive endowments (like most of the HN readership), there's a labor glut.

We could just wait. The trend will continue. Eventually, things will come to a head (or several, under a guillotine). Instead, let's gracefully adapt to increased productivity by increasing the cost of labor. That's how we can let the population as a whole benefit from this productivity miracle.

[1] http://data.bls.gov/timeseries/LNS12300000 [2] http://www.washingtonpost.com/business/economy/us-disability... [3] https://www.wolframalpha.com/input/?i=gini+coefficient+unite... [4] https://www.wolframalpha.com/input/?i=United+States+real+GDP...

Your [1] begins in 2005. Expand that to maximum range, and it will turn out that we're at about average.

I think one of the expected outcomes of ACA was that people who could afford to retire, but were too constrained to buy their own health insurance, would leave the workforce.

The previous period with a comparable employment-population ratio was before women entered the workforce in large numbers.