People Not In Labor Force Soar By 663,000 To 90 Million, Labor Force Participation Rate At 1979 Leve

[Jim.Rob58]

This discussion thread was locked as off-topic by Rhiannon12866 (a host of the Latest Breaking News forum).

Source: Zero Hedge

This was the biggest monthly increase in people dropping out of the labor force since January 2012, when the BLS did its census recast of the labor numbers. And even worse, the labor force participation rate plunged from an already abysmal 63.5% to 63.3% - the lowest since 1979!

Read more: http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2013-04-05/people-not-labor-force-soar-663000-90-million-labor-force-participation-rate-1979-le

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I hope the economy gets much better, much sooner. Many people need work and unfortunately, the jobs are just not there; so they've given up. Sad.

[still_one]

1. no surprise, since the republicans have been blocking every jobs program proposed

[loudsue]

2. Wow! You can see when George Bush Junior became president on that graph.

Give the republicans the reins, and you have....ooops! No more labor force.

[alcibiades_mystery]

3. Welcome to DU, Jim Rob

[Jim.Rob58]

5. Mucho's Gracis, Amigo! n/t

[alcibiades_mystery]

6. I don't know who this "Mucho" might be, or why he possesses a "Gracis"

I also don't know what a "Gracis" might be.

But by all means, have fun here, bud.

[Jim.Rob58]

10. LOL. n/t

[earthside]

4. Talk of cuts to Social Security won't help.

With the bulge of baby boomers headed for retirement in the next few years, and with a vast majority of them with little or no retirement funds, the last thing we need to do is talk about or actually cuts to Social Security or Medicare.

This kind of talk by the President, in my estimation, just foster even more of a hunker down attitude: don't spend if you can help it; pay down debt instead of saving; be very financially conservative; etc.

If we want to stimulate the economy to create a future with more jobs, Obama ought to be talking about increasing Social Security and Medicare benefits --- that's the kind of reform we need. That would make a lot of 50-somethings feel a lot more secure about the future and perhaps willing to spend more.

Of course, we could cut the ridiculous military spending to help pay for increasing Social Security benefits.

So, I'm still supporting sequester for the time being -- Social Security isn't touched by it and the military is actually seeing some cuts for a change.

[Jim.Rob58]

7. I largely agree with you.

Not sure about increasing the rate of social security, but I'm certainly NOT in favor of cutting it. I don't know why the pres. is considering that move. I do believe in two sides making sacrifices for the common good, but bad decisions are not compromises; they're just bad decisions!

[denverbill]

8. What impact does baby boomer retirements have on labor force participation rates?

Unless that is factored in, this information is meaningless.

[Jim.Rob58]

9. None, nor should they.

It wouldn't make sense to calculate the rate based on retiree's retiring. It's about those who were or are looking for work who are not employed.

[alcibiades_mystery]

13. That's absolutely false

This is what persons not in labor force means as a technical category for the BLS:

Persons who are neither employed nor unemployed are not in the labor force. This category includes retired persons, students, those taking care of children or other family members, and others who are neither working nor seeking work. Information is collected on their desire for and availability for work, job search activity in the prior year, and reasons for not currently searching.

http://www.bls.gov/cps/lfcharacteristics.htm#nlf

Why would you come here and lie? Or do you just not know what you're talking about?

For those who want a closer look at these numbers as the BLS supplied them, and not the interpreted graph in the OP's link, here you go: http://www.bls.gov/news.release/empsit.t16.htm

Of course baby boomer retirement has to be factored into the comparison of the percentage to 1979. As was noted by an actual, y'know, economist last August the last time people had a fit about this:

"We have consistently held the view that the labor force participation rate would not rebound any time soon and its decline is mainly driven by the ageing (sic) of the population and the exit of the baby boomers from the labor market," Barclays Capital economist Michael Gapen wrote in a research note. "Therefore, the decline in the unemployment rate is not reflective of underlying strength in employment in this report."

The number of Americans the BLS says are "not in the labor force" has risen by 2.7 million in the past year, to 88.9 million. That sounds bad -- nearly three million people dropping out of the job market.

But of that 88.9 million, just a little less than 7 million people who are out of the labor force say they still want a job. That is a horribly high number. But it has only grown by 488,000 in the past year. In other words, of the 2.7 million people who have dropped out of the labor force in the past year, about 2.2 million of them say they're not interested in finding a job anyway.

And what are the majority of these 2.2 million people who don't want a job doing instead? Retiring, it seems. About 1.6 million people who have dropped out of the labor force in the past year are 65 and over, according to the BLS.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/mark-gongloff/labor-force-participation-rate_b_1865027.html

[dmallind]

15. Well yes and no

Certainly retirement factors into it, but I question the impact. Boomer rates were much higher it's true, but pure count not so much. As it happens the number of people born in the year that turns 65 this year - 1948, was identical to that which turns 18 - 1995, at 3.5M. Surely fewer of the latter have died than the former. Now not everyone retires at 65 or works at 18 I know, but they are fairly standard benchmarks. Choosing realistic alternatives doesn't make much difference anyway.

[alcibiades_mystery]

16. There are certainly interpretations to be made regarding the number...I was addressing the poster's

utterly false definition. He claimed in no uncertain terms that retirement is not taken into account when calculating the Persons not in the Work Force number supplied by the BLS. That's overtly, definitively UNTRUE.

How you want to interpret retirement is obviously an interesting question of interpretation. The economist I cited there believes that retirement has to be accounted for when interpreting the raw number, that it is meaningful. I agree. I certainly think comparing "Persons in the Workforce 2013 to 1979" without considering baby boomer retirement is ridiculous. But I agree these are interpretive questions.

I was commenting primarily on the outright false statement of fact made by Jim Rob in the previous post.

Cheers.

[lib2DaBone]

11. We have less people working now than in 1980...

Our elected leaders have done NOTHING about jobs.. and have stood silent while corporations gutted American manufacturing.

Instead of rebuilding America.. Obama has chosen to give our money to foreign countries ( most recently ...$230 Million to Egypt) while inflicting economic austerity at home.

Stock up on the three B's.... Bible-bullets & beans.

[Enrique]

12. maybe the sequester will help

[dmallind]

14. Only 6M of whom want a job, and only 3M of whom have looked ONCE in a year.

Discouragement is understandable. Abandonment is not. How can you both want a job and not seek one once in an entire year? Imagine all possible obstacles - a disabled minority felon perhaps. Jobs that would consider you are few and far between for sure, but not to even apply once in a year says a lot about how much you really want to work. I was a fairly long term unemployed person myself (year). Disabled in an obvious way too albeit admittedly neither a minority - unless you count immigrants - nor a felon. Discouragement I can attest to myself, but I applied for more than one job a DAY (I kept track; serendipitously #400 was the lucky one). Surely expecting that everyone can be as flexible as I in regard to location and job title is too optimistic, but there is a huge gulf between > 1/day and < 1/yr.

[OKNancy]

17. Baby Boomer here. I dropped out... I retired

[librechik]

18. It's those lazy worker's fault that there are no jobs

If only they weren't so lazy and greedy, the job creators would be helping them out. Why don't they offer to work for food and shelter only? That's the deal our betters in the hiring class are waiting for. Then they can afford to do business again. We can't just hold their obscene profits hostage with our demands for a fair wage, how dare we!

[DeSwiss]

19. K&R

Posted by DeSwiss in General Discussion
Wed Sep 07th 2011, 07:21 PM

Many jobs have been or could have been made obsolete for quite some time now. The way jobs are done, and how much time is necessary to accomplish certain tasks have also been drastically reduced and altered. Alvin Toffler called it "Future Shock".

The problem is that the value derived from improvement in productivity through new inventions and automation in the past two decades in particular, has accrued to a bare few at the top instead of throughout society as a whole. Another drawback to a capitalist society. At the same time, there is also a point where these conflicting values can skew the intended outcomes -- where new inventions or improvements in productivity may itself undermine the existing ruling oligarchy. The oil industry is a good example of this.

However, America is going through this "shakeout process" right now, shedding jobs and people as it molts into something different. A monster, it looks like. The financial industry is now the Big Dog in the marketplace of the world. They can "make" more money now by trading in debt and disaster, than they could back when we used to make "things." That's China, India's and a host to smaller 3rd worlder's job now. And if this process is not stopped and reversed -- there won't be much any middle class left in ten years time.

- When we observe this sort of behavior under a microscope of an organism's cells acting in this way, we call it cancer......

"The reality is that institutions of codified thought, societal influence, power, dogmas, corporations and governments -- each have a high propensity to engage in denial, dishonesty, and corruption to maintain self-preservation and self-perpetuation.... The profit mechanism creates established orders which constitute the survival and wealth for a few groups of people. The fact is that no matter how socially beneficial new advents may be, they will be viewed in hostility if they threaten an established financially-driven institution. Meaning social progress can be a threat to the establishment, and so therefore abundance, sustainability and efficiency are the enemies of profit." ~Peter Joseph

link

It's even more true today.......

K&R

[quadrature]

20. the private sector is doing fine.

how much better do you think
the economy should be?

[Munificence]

21. You're kidding Right?

I hope this is sarcasm, seen the latest jobs report?

[OhioChick]

22. The private sector is doing fine?

U.S. Private Sector Job Growth Falls Well Short Of Estimates In March

http://www.rttnews.com/2088159/u-s-private-sector-job-growth-falls-well-short-of-estimates-in-march.aspx

[Rhiannon12866]

23. Locking, sorry, this is a duplicate. Please continue discussion and post updates here:

http://www.democraticunderground.com/1014445294