The economy is very peaceful today. That's bad news.

Here's why worker unrest is good

A decrease in worker strikes does not quite indicate better times.
(Image credit: Library of Congress)

If you want an uncomfortable but useful insight into American employment, there's a new report from the Bureau of Labor Statistics you should see.

It's not terribly complicated. It just documents the number of work stoppages involving 1,000 workers or more — either from strikes or lockouts — going back from 2015 to 1947. As Ben Casselman noted at FiveThirtyEight, in 1952, a whopping 470 work stoppages happened across the American economy. Fast forward to last year, and there were only 12.

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Jeff Spross

Jeff Spross was the economics and business correspondent at TheWeek.com. He was previously a reporter at ThinkProgress.