US Labor Participation rate hits 34 year low

Originally posted by Eladar
2013-34 puts us about 1979, hey what do you know Obama has brought our numbers back in line to the Jimmy Carter years. Nice.

http://www.breitbart.com/Big-Government/2013/08/28/Labor-Participation-Rate-Hits-34-Year-Low

Maybe if American business's shipped a few million more jobs to China, everything would be better.

Originally posted by Eladar
2013-34 puts us about 1979, hey what do you know Obama has brought our numbers back in line to the Jimmy Carter years. Nice.

http://www.breitbart.com/Big-Government/2013/08/28/Labor-Participation-Rate-Hits-34-Year-Low

The labor participation rate rose strongly during the Carter administration.

Although labor participation rates are influenced by demographic trends, I feel they are more useful than unemployment rates, because they catch all the hidden forms of unemployment including the "disabled" people on disability benefits, which is a significant and growing problem in the US (the article mentions it). The problem is that disability benefits are federal, so states are encourages to get people on those benefits in order to leech more federal money.

However, I would expect one of the main reasons for the drop in the participation rate is that the percentage of 55-65 year olds in the labour force has increased. These people tend to retire early. Still, it's a worrying sign that the US lags about 10 percentage points behind wealthy European nations.