The Bogus Baby Boomer Retirement Argument For Record Low Workforce Participation Rates Under Obama

Every month, the Bureau of Labor Statistics calculates what percentage of our population is working.  Today,  that number is at historical lows.  At every turn, Republicans make sure that the voters know this. Of course, people on the left don't like them to know that number because increasing record lows in the workforce participation rate discredits the highly manipulated and supposedly falling unemployment rate.

So, lately, left-leaning economists and Obama apologists have been floating the belief that the workforce is actually getting smaller because baby boomers are retiring at a faster rate than the population is growing. Those people doing the arguing always point back to that overused  statement: "starting in 2011, ten thousand baby boomers will retire each day over the next nineteen years."

Of course, having dealt with statistics for most of my college life and business career, I have always had problems with nicely rounded numbers like 10,000 a day.  To me, a number like that is often more political than statistical.  Further, that number, contrary to usually compounded population growth, is assumed to be unrealistically constant over that period of 19 years.  And, that just can't be.

In 1946, the first year of the baby boom, 2.738 million baby's were born.  So, theoretically, if none died, you would have slightly more than 7,500 babies per day hitting age 65 in 2011.   Not the 10,000 a day number that is being tossed around.  But, depending on what study you look at, somewhere between 30 and 40 percent of those born in 1946 would die before reaching age 65.  After all, the life expectancy for someone born that year was only 66.7 years.  So, best case, by using the 30% factor, only about 1.9 million of the original 2.738 million who were born in 1946 would still be around in 2011 and reach that ripe old reach age of 65.  Therefore, more realistically, you would have about 5,200 boomers turning 65 each day in 2011; almost half that ridiculous 10,000 a day number.  At the same time, 2011 should have added about 2.751 million new workers to the labor force; just due to the population additions that occured in the 20, or so, preceding years.

Now, call me crazy, but, what I have shown, above, seems to contest the belief that, somehow, the smaller workforce size is all due baby boomers retiring.  And, this is before you even consider the fact that many "age-sixty-fivers" are hardly in a financial position to retire; having lost 40% of their wealth  in the last 5 years.  Nor does my workforce calculation take into consideration that the U.S. allows 1.1 million people per year to lawfully enter the country on a permanent basis; and, of that, about 800,000 are of working age and should have entered the workforce in 2011.

The reality is that a lot of people have just given up looking for work under Obama's stewardship.  A fact that the left just won't admit. As for the baby boomers...?  Their impact will be to slow the "net" growth of the workforce.  Not to shrink it.