General Discussion
In reply to the discussion: Do I have this right: Obama shouldn't get credit for saving the US economy [View all]bhikkhu
(10,789 posts)From the latest release: "The civilian labor force participation rate held at 62.8 percent in November and has
been essentially unchanged since April."
http://www.bls.gov/news.release/empsit.nr0.htm
There are different ways of counting that, just as there are different ways of figuring unemployment. The customary one is to take all the people of employable age and seeing how many are employed. That excludes only people in prison and young people under 16 (and, being the "civilian" rate, it excludes military personnel). It includes disabled people, students, retirees, stay-at-home moms and dads and so forth, so its a much more general number than the unemployment rate.
Personally I don't mind that not everyone has to work for a living all the time. My parents are retired, my wife didn't work while our kids were young, and I have two kids over 16 who don't currently have jobs (their job is to study, learn, and get good grades).