tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5912833783359356343.post76539695328414963..comments2023-11-02T06:44:25.146-05:00Comments on Molly's Middle America: What Was the Unemployment Rate When Obama Took Office? (January 2012 update)Middle Mollyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11441441493867436577noreply@blogger.comBlogger2125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5912833783359356343.post-28697381808034791352012-02-08T18:23:09.550-06:002012-02-08T18:23:09.550-06:00I don't ignore anything. If you read more of ...I don't ignore anything. If you read more of my posts you would know that. In this particular post, I report the unemployment rate as reported by the BLS and I use that as a basis for comparison. I publish a monthly "underemployment rate".. those numbers are all going down as well.<br /><br />As I have posted at various places throughout this blog, we still need many more jobs and workers to make up for the extremely deep hole in the economy in the years 2007 through 2010. We lost 8 million jobs during those years. 8 million. We've made up almost 4 million of those jobs, and that is really pretty good. Do you think that McCain and the despicable, incompetent P woman would have done any better? <br /><br />In terms of all of these "missing" workers, yes, of course, there are fewer people working now as recovery from this extremely deep recession has been painfully slow. About people in the 25-54 age group not entering the labor market (which is discussed in the EPI link), the labor force participation rate for people in this age group is now the same as it was in 1986. The labor force participation rate for this age group reached its peak in 1997 at 84.5% and has been decreasing ever since. <br /><br />Employment participation is clearly a function of the economy overlaid on the demographics demonstrated by the labor participation rate; the labor force participation is much more likely to be a function of demographics. But employment participation for this group hit a peak of 81.9% in early 2000 and has been declining ever since. It burped back up over 80% in late 2007/early 2008, and then continued down. The portion of the population that is now in the 55+ age group has grown by about 9,000,000 since the last Census. Other age groups have grown modestly or not at all. As people hit 55, they start to retire. The labor participation rate of people over 55 is about half of that of the labor participation rate of people in the 25-54 age group. <br /><br />I've been researching this fairly closely over the past couple of weeks, and I am increasingly believing that much of the decrease in the labor participation rate is the result of demographics... not that there aren't people who have fled the job market, but the millions of "lost" people decried by Fox News and others are mostly Baby Boomers who have retired.... who have not been replaced by the Baby Bust generation. I'll publish those findings when they are complete.Middle Mollyhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/11441441493867436577noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5912833783359356343.post-1896408297389113762012-02-08T03:37:51.233-06:002012-02-08T03:37:51.233-06:00You ignore the fact that the number of "worki...You ignore the fact that the number of "working age" people in the country grows by 100k to 150k per month.<br /><br />Having almost 1 million fewer workers today than at Obama's inauguration is not a good thing. Add in the other 4-5 million young people that never entered the workforce because there were no jobs, and we're still in a world of hurt.<br /><br />Even the liberal think tank EPI has pointed this out.<br /><br />http://www.epi.org/blog/real-unemployment-rate/Anonymousnoreply@blogger.com