The labor force participation rate continues to fall.
As the chart below - from the New York Times article Three Questions on the Jobs Picture - shows, it's down to levels we haven't seen since the 1970's (the blue line is the actual data as reported by the BLS, the red line is the trend).
Demographics explain part of the decline. Aging baby boomers, a big demographic cohort, are retiring and leaving the work force. But this only explains part of the decline. Key quote from the article:
Researcher have shown that some of the drop is to be expected given our aging demographics, but not this much. (I’d say half, at most, can be attributed to demographics, and probably more like one-third.)
But a big question that still remains is where are the folks aged 25-54 going? In 2007 54% of Americans aged 25-54 were working. Today the percent has declined to 51%.
For men the data is even worse. Key quote from another New York Times article, Changes in the Labor Force Mask Gains in the Jobs Situation:
Men between 25 and 34, the period when careers begin and families form, are less likely to have jobs now than at any time from 1948, when the statistic began to be compiled ...
This is not good news and the societal impacts of men in the prime of their lives not working are huge.
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