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Economy here has been fine since since early 2014 or so. I would say it's downright good at this point. I don't really hear about people I know being long unemployed anymore
It's all dependent on location and what type of work though.
If the population was the same that would be great.
Don't change horses in the middle of the stream. Of course, the old horse drowned, so maybe that's an excuse.
And for the zillionth time, LFPR is principally a demographic indicator that peaked as predicted in 2000 and will now be on a long-term decline extending at least into the mid-2020s.
178,000 jobs were added in November. More than since 2007, I read. Unemployment down to 4.6%.
Sweet. There's evidence that middle class wages are ticking upwards, too, but of course, not enough. The middle class income has not been keeping up with the rest of the economy for years. Still, good news is good news.
Except the underemployment rate is through the roof but hey who's counting
If you considered the 95 million who are "out of the labor force" to be unemployed, what would the real unemployment rate be?
It seems to me when someone retires early because they can't get a job, it's only a difference in semantics between being retired and being unemployed. It's not as if they were planning their retirement date for years. Just that they gave up looking for a job and that was their motive for retiring. But if someone suddenly offered them a good job, they would be likely to suddenly become available for employment again.
If you considered the 95 million who are "out of the labor force" to be unemployed, what would the real unemployment rate be?
Employed people have a job. Unemployed people do not have a job, but they would like to work, are available to work, and have taken some positive step to find work within the past four weeks.
Just looking at my own situation, I don't have a job, but I don't meet any of the other three qualifications. Hence, I am not employed and I am not unemployed. I am just not part of the labor force at all.
Couldn't be happier about that, by the way.
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Originally Posted by eok
It seems to me when someone retires early because they can't get a job, it's only a difference in semantics between being retired and being unemployed. It's not as if they were planning their retirement date for years. Just that they gave up looking for a job and that was their motive for retiring. But if someone suddenly offered them a good job, they would be likely to suddenly become available for employment again.
Retiring means to leave a job that you had upon reaching some age or length-of-service minimums. You go to work one day and you voluntarily do not go back to work the next day.
Retiring does not mean that you don't have a job and have quit looking for one because you believe that no jobs are available, or at least none that you could actually qualify for. That's called being discouraged. It's a totally different thing.
Apologists claim the increased number of Americans dropping out of the labor force is due to Boomers retiring, but that data doesn't support the claim. In fact, just the opposite, Boomers are increasing their presence in the labor force.
LNU01300097 Labor Force Participation Rate 65+ Years
65+ has gone from 9.7% in 2000 to 14.5% in 2014 (last year available, nobody expects it to be anything but higher today.) A 6% more ARE participating in the labor force after 65 but 65+ still has very low labor participation rates and is growing rapidly. The 6% increase in labor force participation does not offset much of the rapidly increasing percentage of the population that is 65+.
It's only going to continue. Boomers are now, 52-72ish. 65 isn't even full retirement age. It's much higher for 65-70 than that 19% and much lower than 19% for 75+. The increase is not an unexpected effect of the baby boom. Most of them are in that 65-70 group that work at higher rates than the general 65+ category. Yes, they're also working longer but there's also more of the 65+ that's in the 65-70 group that has always worked more than the 70-75 or 75+ groups.
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The same holds true for the 55-59 Years group which has increased from 69.3% in 2000 to 71.5% in 2016 and the 60-64 Year age group, increasing from 47.5% to 61.3% over the same time period.
No matter how you look at it, older people are staying in the work force longer.
Again, yes. The two work in opposites. People work longer and there's more older people who still work at lower rates than younger people. 50-59 and 60-64 (boomer boom) participation rate is lower than prime working years, 25-54. That boomers work longer partially offsets the fact that we have a lot of boomers who are now mostly past prime working years.
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Mostly the 16-24 year old and 25-54 year old crowds. We can see that here:
LNU01324887 Labor Force Participation Rate 16-24 Years
Again, not entirely unexpected although problematic. More people are in school and there's also just an unavailability of unskilled jobs which most of the 16-24 group would normally be taking, especially the 16-22 group. That's the skill gap effect. If you look at fast food workers, they're much older now. Since there aren't as many unskilled jobs for older workers to matriculate to they stick around working fast food. Fast food and retail was probably most people's first job. I know it was for me. I started out dusting and stocking shelves.
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LNU01300060 Labor Force Participation Rate 25-54 Years
And the number of stay-at-home moms has increased by 6 points to 29% in 2012. Obviously not all of it but one of the effects. Some are marginally attached and might work if there were better opportunities. Others, like my sister, are completely out of the workforce and have no intention of working. I imagine she'll start thinking about re-entering the work force after about 8-9 years but really doesn't have any useful skills so probably will be more like 12-14 years. Honestly, I don't know though. She is kind of a flake. Unless having kids made her grow up she may never return to the workforce.
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The bottom line is that 13,881,835 fewer Americans are working now than in Year 2000.
And there's 11 million more (in 2014) who are 65+ than there were in 2000. Since 6% more are working, that's about 10.3 million.
Also, number is just wrong. There's about 17 million MORE people working as well, yeah, larger population.
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Add that to the 7+ Million that are unemployed, and the unemployed becomes 20+ Million, so you can see where some people might claim the real unemployment rate is ~12.5%
There are multiple measures of under utilization. U6 is under 10%, so no, not really.
Last edited by Malloric; 12-04-2016 at 02:54 PM..
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