Apparently a big factor in the bad #s is... the p*rn shutdown. http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2013-09-06/p*rn-shutdown-shock-won-t-stop-fed-from-tapering.html
And that's how you get page hits on an article about a monthly government release at a non-subscription finance site.
Stagflation. Basically we're still in an economic Recession, but prices are going up because of high oil prices, and the rich getting richer. Government just spins the numbers to make it look as though unemployment is down.
and the Obama jobs debacle rolls on Fewest working, or even looking, since 1978. pathetic. far worse than even the low expectations. http://money.cnn.com/2014/01/10/news/economy/december-jobs-report/index.html?hpt=hp_t1
I should probably be doing work instead of looking up data, but I did anyways. I went up to the BLS website and looked up the data. I think what they are referring to is participation rate. It is the lowest it has been since 1978. Then I noticed something, if you remove the 16-18 year-olds from the data, participation rate is about 65% which isn't that much different than what it has been. I think we have a lot of 18-20 year-olds working in McDonalds which is screwing over the teens which might be one of the reason their Participation rate has fallen of so much. In fact from from 1978 to 2013 the participation rate of 16-18 year-olds has gone from 47.1 to 22.6. Should the government be focusing their efforts on raising participation rates for 16-18 year-olds?
I was thinking of looking at the 65+ crowd. A larger percentage of our population is likely in retirement today than they were in 1978. Also considering that college attendance is higher now than it was then, I'd try to control for that too. Compare ages 22-65 on labor participation and see what that looks like for a fair picture.
Thanks for looking at things with reason and logic and not being a mindless robot who just posts stupid things they don't understand.
It's almost like people with no skills and no work experience are having trouble finding jobs. Time to raise the damn minimum wage again.
This won't completely answer your question at all, but here's an interesting plot. The 30+ year trend seems to be less participation for the very young and higher participation among the once-typically "retired" ages. The problem of course with these percentages is that you can't see the huge and growing bubble of total numbers in the 65+ range. This table has (again by percentages), just the break down you want, and even more. http://www.bls.gov/emp/ep_table_303.htm The greatest decline from 2002 to 2012 was among men aged 16-24, but there is also a (much smaller) decline in the 25-64 wheelhouse, projected to continue through 2018. Older people are working more and it's projected to continue. Whether that's some additional healthy people (?) or people who haven't saved for retirement (?) is anyone's guess.
Your argument makes no sense. People are leaving the labor force because they can survive on welfare. There is no economic incentive to get a real job. That's a da** shame.
look at the data most of lower participation rate is in the 16-18 range. Usually they are not full time employees and therefore can't collect UI.
Don't be surprised to see an even lower participation rate in the future. You can also extend from 16 to ~25. A college degree doesn't separate you out any more so more and more grads are going to Law/Grad/Medical school. Add to that school costs more than ever! Add to that student loan rates are at a higher interest rate than ever! So when the young people eventually get out of school and start to make money they don't have money to spend, it just goes back to banks! Used to be you could get a job, buy a house, car, ect. Now we just delay working as long as possible to be as educated as possible!
