Why Baby Boomers Aren't Causing Lower Labor Participation Rates

Once again, the nation's unemployment rate fell on a shrinking labor participation rate and, once again, people on the left are explaining it away on the basis that 10,000 Baby Boomers are retiring every day; starting 4 years ago in 2011.  Therefore, we are led to believe that there are more people retiring than entering the workforce. Well, not according to this population pyramid derived from Census Bureau data:

Simply, there are roughly 17.5 million theoretical retirees (age 65-69) against almost 23.5 million theoretical job seekers (age 20-24). The net of which should result in an annual increase of 1.2 million workers per year. Yet, month after month, the size of the workforce barely increases or even falls.  In fact, it fell by 432,000 workers last month.

References:

Labor force participation rate falls to 38-year low: http://www.businessinsider.com/labor-force-participation-rate-falls-to-38-year-low-2015-7

US Age Structure 2014: http://www.indexmundi.com/united_states/age_structure.html

Decades Of Labor Participation Wiped Out and Continuing to Decline

In 1997 -- 14 years before the supposed wave of retiring baby boomers were to start hitting the economy -- the number of workers participating in labor peaked at 68.1%. This after having climbed from a low of 57.9% in 1965.  Compared to that high in 1997, the current participation rate has fallen nearly 8% to today's level of 62.8%; now equaling levels not seen since 1978.  And the current decline -- post recession --  has significantly accelerated since 2007.

In a recent report release by the Center for Immigration Studies (CIS), almost all of the newly created jobs in this country since 2000 have gone to immigrants; both legal and illegal.  During that same period, 58 million natural born citizens simply dropped out of the workforce.

So, how do 58 million workers survive not working?

Many find filing for Social Security disability insurance a new way to get a lifetime of pay without having to work.  As a result, we now have a record 11 million on disability; or, approximately, one out of every fourteen working age citizens collecting insurance.  Because of poor economic times, 36 percent of 18-to-31 year-olds or more than 21 million are living at home; most not working.  This, too, is the reason that gang membership has swelled to 1.4 million; up from 1 million in 2009 and 750,000 in 2000. The welfare rolls have been exploding with 15% of the population or 46.5 million in poverty and many eligible for full benefits including income.  Others aren't working because of college or the military.

The declining trend in labor participation is putting this country at risk economically. As the participation rate declines, it means that fewer and fewer of us are paying taxes and paying towards programs like Social Security and Medicare; and, subsequently, more and more of us are living off of the government instead of assisting it.

Essentially, the decline in labor participation also means that America is becoming a poorer country with incomes either stagnant or declining while the cost of living increases at a faster pace.  This is evidenced by the fact that median incomes in the U.S. pretty much peaked in 1998; exactly one year  after the 1997 peak in the participation rate:

During that same period where incomes were in decline, the cost of things we buy went up 48%.

America must wake up to the fact that the country is in decline with too few people working.  We are becoming the very essence of the European economies that have high unemployment; high taxes; unmanageable government debt; and, low business profits.  You can find all kinds of reasons for this: an increasingly poorly educated workforce with the good jobs either going overseas or being handed to better educated immigrants on work visas; or, because of increased government regulation that accelerated during the Clinton years and are even more oppressive under Obama; and/or, too high taxes on businesses that continue to make our companies less competitive in a world marketplace and which, prevent both the volume and quality of jobs being created.  At the same time we need to reassess all of our government assistance programs to insure that people who can work do work.

References:

Civilian Labor Force Participation Rate: http://research.stlouisfed.org/fred2/series/LNU01300000

Disability Beneficiaries Hit New Record: http://cnsnews.com/news/article/terence-p-jeffrey/10996447-disability-beneficiaries-hit-new-record

June 2014: Civilian Workforce Participation Rate: http://www.bls.gov/news.release/empsit.a.htm

America’s Shameful Poverty Stats: http://www.thenation.com/article/176242/americas-shameful-poverty-stats

A Record 21.6 Million Millennials Living With Parents: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/08/01/millennials-live-with-parents_n_3690870.html

2009 Gang Statistics: http://www.statisticbrain.com/gang-statistics/

2014 Gang Data: http://www.fbi.gov/about-us/investigate/vc_majorthefts/gangs

Median Income Falls For 5th Year, Inequality At Record High: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/09/17/median-income-falls-inequality_n_3941514.html

Year-to-Year U.S. Inflation Calculator: http://www.usinflationcalculator.com/

Obama Revives His Call For His Union Jobs Bill

Following  Friday's lousy jobs number, Obama and his operatives are, once again, calling for his $350 billion jobs bill to keep fireman, police, and teachers working  while spending billions more to rebuild the country's infrastructure (roads and bridges).  But every one of those jobs that the President is calling for, are all union.  In essence, he wants to spend another $350 billion dollars to help his union voting base in this, an election year.


Policeman, fireman and teachers are all part of the public sector workforce; and, the public sector workforce is only 16% of all American workers.  Of that 16%, only about 37% -- or 6% of this nation's total workforce -- are unionized policeman, fireman and teachers.  On the other hand, heavy equipment workers -- the kind who would work on rehabilitating roads and bridges -- are, again, all filling union jobs in the private sector.  But, unions only hold about 7% of the total private sector jobs in America.  

So, basically, Obama's jobs bill does nothing to help those unemployed Americans who would be part of the  more than 87% of  the entire workforce.  That, to me, is a totally irresponsible act by a president who is supposed to be the President of all the people.  Once again, Obama is putting party politics ahead of the health and well being of the greater good of the country.

The Really Horrible Employment Number That No One's Talking About

Last month's employment report revealed that a record 88 million people are no longer part of the workforce.  When Obama took office that number was around 80.5 million. In just three years, those not working has increased by nearly 10% or 7.5 million people.

This fact is a horrible reality.  It means that millions of graduating high school and college seniors never got a chance to the enter the workforce.  At the same time, it means that millions of former workers, who lost their jobs, just, frustratingly, gave up looking for work. And, let's not forget that these 7.5 million are over-and-above the official 1.1 million increase in the number of unemployed since Obama took office; moving from 11.6 million in January 2009 to last month's 12.7 million. This certainly flies in the face of Obama's claim that, some how, he has created 2.5 million jobs since taking office.