The American economy created 148,000 jobs in September – well below the 180,000 experts were predicting. Meanwhile the nation’s labor participation rate – or the percentage of the working age population that is either employed or actively searching for a job – remained stuck at 63.2 percent.
That’s the lowest it’s been since August 1978.
America’s workforce has been steadily shrinking since Obama took office – falling from 65.8 percent in February 2009 to its current 35-year low. Last month, a record 90.5 million Americans were out of the workforce – an all-time high.
In other words the modest declines in unemployment we’ve been witnessing in recent months (the official rate fell from 7.3 to 7.2 percent in September) are due to a shrinking labor pool – not sustained job growth. Add the declining work force to the mix and the nation’s the real unemployment rate is well over 11 percent.
Originally scheduled for release three weeks ago, the September report was delayed because the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) was one of the few agencies impacted by the so-called “government shutdown.”
8 comments
“so called government shutdown”
Let me fix that for you, you obviously meant the republican government shutdown.
Guess you forgot. We haven’t.
Who is the “we” you’re referring to? The Dems voted down 40+ budget proposals and the POTUS’ “My way or NO WAY” lack of leadership are as much or more to blame…
“My way or NO WAY”
Ah, intellectual dishonesty. “We didn’t WANT to shut down the government, in fact, we tried repeatedly to reopen it!” Never mind the completely unreasonable demands being made by Republicans while the House GOP changed the rules of the House to prevent a clean CR from ever being voted on without their approval. And, of course, the fact that the whole thing was over health care reform, not over cutting spending or scaling back real government abuses on the people. Oh, and let’s forget the calls to keep the government shut down by very prominent Tea Party politicians and groups, as well as calls for us to hit the debt ceiling, because it won’t result in anything bad of course.
It takes some serious mental gymnastics to blame someone for the shutdown while simultaneously calling for it to not only continue, but to be added on to.
Obama didn’t lack leadership, he grew some damn balls for once and stood up to Republican thuggery. Good on him. Hope he doesn’t back down when the Tea Party tries this again in January, which Cruz and his buddies already have promised will happen. But remember, the DEMOCRATS want the shutdown! lol…
“Obama didn’t lack leadership…?”
Really? POTUS abdicated the Dems position to Harry Reid.
“And, of course, the fact that the whole thing was over health care reform, not over cutting spending or scaling back real government abuses on the people” Healthcare in this country is the definition of irresponsible spending and Gov’t abuse. FBI statistics for 2011 show we paid $2.7 TRILLION for heathcare. Of that $80 BILLION was fraud! Do you really think the ACA with it’s 10,000+ pages of regs will adress eith of these issues?
As Nancy Pelosi said “We have to pass this (ACA), so we can read it!” LOL!
“We haven’t”, I’m sure there are many that agree with you…but speak for yourself johnq or do you have a turd in your pocket?
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Baby_boomer
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:US_Birth_Rates.svg
http://data.bls.gov/pdq/SurveyOutputServlet
*Baby boomers born between 1946 and 1964.
*Baby boomers reach age 21 at 1967 – 1985. Take a look at the graph from BLS. Labor participation rate starts rising around 1967 and continues to rise until the 2000s.
*Baby boomers reach age 65 and are able to take part in Social Security and Medicare between 2011 and 2029.
*Labor participation rate starts to decline rapidly after the recession hit, 3 years before the magical range of 2011-2029.
There’s no reason to think this trend won’t continue into the next few decades. Sure, the recession definitely factors into a portion of this, but labor participation rates will continue to decline until 2030 regardless of how recovery goes. Considering life expectancy is far longer than it used to be, that effect could last a while, too.
One other thing, you can draw Social Security at 62. If you knock off three years from the range above, it becomes 2008-2026. I would imagine losing your job, being in a tough job market, and losing a sizable portion of your 401k would be pretty devastating for someone about to enter retirement. It could very well force people into retirement early, make them downsize or cut what they spend, work a crappy job until they can draw SS, etc. Some may be passed over decent jobs in their original career due to their age.
I don’t see the labor participation rate coming back up anytime soon. There are plenty of countries out there facing a growing senior population and an ever-shrinking birth rate. Japan’s probably far more screwed on that front than we are, but it is still going to be felt.
I am sure you spent the better part of 20 minutes putting this together. However, you are wrong. Some economists attribute the low LPR to retirement of 76 million Boomers, they also are wrong.
-The LPR for women is at a 24 year low.
-90 million eligible to work Americans are unemployed and are not counted.
-Gen X 41 million 28-38 yo’s
-Gen Y 71 million 10-22 yo’s
The reason for the 25 year low Labor Participation Rate is lack of jobs.
http://money.cnn.com/2013/09/06/news/economy/labor-force-participation/
Take off the rose colored glasses. Democrats have failed America with no job growth while spending 787 billion dollars alone for the 2009 American Recovery and Reinvestment Act. The Obama Tax Hike of 2010 is an attempt to recoup the trillions the Democrats have spent since 2010…all on the backs on Gen X and Gen Y.
It’ll be worse when they revise it a few months from now.