The recent pace of U.S. job growth tends to be described as “tepid,” “lackluster” or “disappointing.” But according to two economists from the Federal Reserve Bank of Chicago, it’s plenty good enough to bring down the unemployment rate.

In a new paper , Chicago Fed economists Dan Aaronson and Scott Brave try to estimate how many jobs the economy needs to add each month to keep the unemployment rate steady, after taking into account population growth and other factors.

Their answer: 80,000 jobs. That’s far below the 150,000 to 200,000 jobs required in the 1980s and 1990s, and significantly below the 100,000 to 150,000 figure often cited by economists today. Messrs. Aaronson and Brave argue those higher figures fail to take into account underlying changes to the U.S. labor force, notably slowing population growth and a long-term decline in the share of the population that’s working.

What’s behind the shrinking labor force is subject to much debate, but the Chicago economists expect the decline to continue. They estimate that by 2016, it will take just 35,000 new jobs per month to keep the unemployment rate steady. That’s based on some admittedly uncertain assumptions about immigration, labor-force participation and other trends; the authors estimate the true figure could be anywhere from zero to 120,000 jobs, with somewhere between 20,000 and 50,000 jobs per month as the most likely range.