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1) The young women having babies (some becoming stay-at-home moms - or sometimes today it's stay-at-home dads) and others just taking a couple of months off from work around the time of delivery (but then them rejoining the workforce is offset by ANOTHER young woman leaving the workforce temporarily to have a baby).
2) Young men and woman in the military
3) Young men and woman in college (the 38% of (20+million students) that you mention)
When you combine all those folks it MORE than offsets the slightly larger numbers of people turning 25 than those turning 65 - thus providing a downward pressure on the Labor Participation Rate. As I said, the changing demographics are not the only thing pressuring the LPR downwards, but it's a definite (and built-in right now) factor.
Ken
Number 3 I can fight with part-time schooling. 54% of the 25-29 year olds going to college are full-time students. Only 34% of 40+ year olds in college are full-time. (Source) Also a recent study from 2011 shows that students actually work in droves. 20% work full-time while going to college which puts them IN the LPR. (Source) Let's remember, if a college student is working, that puts them in the workforce and counted in the LPR.
That is a real edgy MSNBC comment, you should send it along to Mr. Tingly Leg himself.
However, stay on topic please.
Are these good numbers?
-shrinking full time jobs.
-increasing poverty rate.
-worst employment participation since 1979.
-increasing food stamp rate.
-less hours worked per American.
-declining household income.
Mind you - ALL of these numbers are worse since Obama declared a "recovery" had begun.
On one hand you say that government isn't the solution to our problems, on the other you blame government for your (perceived) problems. Can't have it both ways...
Sure, but the people here blame Obama as if he's the only person in the government and ignoring the fact that government has little power in terms of producing jobs.
Stop bringing up Reagan or any other president - he just happened to be in the White House during a growth business cycle. That's all.
Outsourcing and automation killed your jobs, not Obama.
Quote:
Originally Posted by LordBalfor
Lots of truth to that.
Ken
Funny, you guys are the first ones to yell Bush killed the economy..
Number 3 I can fight with part-time schooling. 54% of the 25-29 year olds going to college are full-time students. Only 34% of 40+ year olds in college are full-time. (Source) Also a recent study from 2011 shows that students actually work in droves. 20% work full-time while going to college which puts them IN the LPR. (Source) Let's remember, if a college student is working, that puts them in the workforce and counted in the LPR.
Not sure what point you are trying to make, even your own post confirms that there's a pretty significant number of older students who are attending school full time.
The other thing to keep in mind is that aside from the fact that many young people entering their working years who are doing other things besides joining the civilian work force there's also the fact that perhaps - even more importantly - it's not so much the comparison of people turning 25 to those turning 65 that's driving down the labor participation rate, it's the comparison of the percentage of people over 65 today (and in the years to come) compared to the percentage of people over 65 in years past (rather than comparing the number of people turning 65 today to those turning 25 today).
Perhaps the best way to explain this is with an image of the US age pyramid (see below). This image shows the US population by age group as of the year 2000. As you can see, the biggest single group is those between 35 and 39 (those folks are now between 48 and 52). The 2nd biggest group is those between 40 and 44 (they are now between 53 and 57). That demographic wave is what's coming and what will have an enormous downward pressure on the Labor Participation Rate - and while we're not yet to that crest in the wave, we already starting to see the beginnings of it (in the image, it's the folks showing up as between 50 and 54 who are NOW between 63 and 67).
At one point I had found an animated gif image of this graph that showed how the population distribution has changed over the years (and how it WILL change in the years to come). That animated image was most enlightening because what it showed is that what BEGINS looking like a typical "house" shape (ie rather flat sides and a fairly pointed roof) in the years to come starts to look more and more like a "pillar" (ie thicker at the top than it is today) because that demographic wave of baby boomers works it way upwards displaying more and more people in the senior citizen category- with each of the upper categories becoming wider in relation to the lower categories (ie the 85+ group gets wider, the 80-84 group gets wider, the 75-79 group gets wider, etc, etc, etc while the lower age groups don't change very much because the lower portion of the "walls" of the house-shape are nearly the same as the upper portion of the "walls"). That change is a direct result of A) massive numbers of babyboomers entering their retirement years, and B) more and more senior citizens living longer.
As I said, at one point I'd found an animated gif file that showed this whole process in motion on the attachedizd image, with that babyboomer "bulge" working it's way up to the top. While the bulge got smaller as it moved into the senior years, it remained a "bulge" all the way to the very top - resulting in a "near-column" look for this representation. That kind of demographic change is ALREADY affecting the Labor Participation Rate, but what has already transpired in that regard is NOTHING compared to what's to come. While the LPR would indeed be higher if the economy was doing better it's NEVER going back to what it was (at least not in OUR lifetimes), demographic changes make that a certainty.
Ken
Last edited by LordBalfor; 07-07-2013 at 11:44 PM..
On one hand you say that government isn't the solution to our problems, on the other you blame government for your (perceived) problems. Can't have it both ways...
I realize this is a very general topical assessment, however, not following your statement.
If you did perceive govt to be the problem (i.e. isn't the solution) then logic dictates that you would indeed (blame it for your perceived problems), as you put it.
Funny, you guys are the first ones to yell Bush killed the economy..
I didn't see that, Must have missed it. However, outsourcing and automation is valid.
Automation seems less of an issue. Outsourcing was directed by the govt however, in many ways. (i.e. -33% since around 2000) The CEO, in charge certainly bears responsibility, but he is not the only one.
This truely is just the new normal. I doubt this country will ever see U6 unemployment under 10% ever again. Generation Y are victims of the greed displayed by generation X and the boomers.
More and more I point my finger at Obama. Kind of getting sick of this mess. I want to move away and start my life over and I am mortified of just falling into chronic unemployment if I do. The dramatic actions that Obama initiated during his first two years of his presidency have seemed to just put weights on the legs of our economy.
First off, a lot of your assumptions and "facts" are bogus. You claim that "Full time jobs have been lost for 6 months straight now and we have lost full time jobs since Obama declared a recovery." but the fact is, THESE are the number of workers (in thousands) since Feb:
FEB: 143,492
MAR: 143,286
APR: 143,579
MAY: 143,898
JUNE: 144,058
From just 5 months ago the number of workers is up OVER HALF A MILLION, and from June of last year it's up almost a MILLION.
And here's the number of FULL TIME workers over that time:
FEB: 115,841
MAR: 115,903
APR: 116,053
MAY: 16,238
JUNE: 115,998
That does NOT show a "loss for 6 months straight" - and the number of FULL TIME workers is up roughly a MILLION AND A HALF from a year ago (15,998 - 114,606).
I didn't bother to even check out the validity of your other "facts" since it's pretty clear you either made them up or didn't bother to verify what you read elsewhere.
Ken
really ken....lets look at those very link you send
civilian labor force june 2012...............155,149,000
civilian labor force june 2013..............155,835,000
a change of less than 700,000 in a year
not in the labor force june 2012.......88,006,000
not in the labor force june 2013.......89,717,000
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