{"id":6167,"date":"2017-03-03T12:54:05","date_gmt":"2017-03-03T18:54:05","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/admin.patheos.com\/blogs\/janetheactuary\/?p=6167"},"modified":"2017-03-03T14:59:13","modified_gmt":"2017-03-03T20:59:13","slug":"94-million-matter","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/janetheactuary\/2017\/03\/94-million-matter.html","title":{"rendered":"The 94 million matter"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<\/head>

\"IMG_0857\"<\/p>\n

So at his quasi-State of the Union, President Trump (I know, it\u2019s strange to be using that title) said that there were 94 million people out of the labor force, and the AP, in its fact check, said, \u201cyou dummy, this number includes all the retirees, and the disabled, and stay-at-home parents, and students, etc., etc., so that\u2019s not any evidence of a real unemployment problem.\u201d<\/p>\n

OK, actually, they said<\/a>,<\/p>\n

That 94 million figure includes everyone aged 16 and older who doesn\u2019t have a job and isn\u2019t looking for one. So it includes retirees, parents who are staying home to raise children, and high school and college students who are studying rather than working.<\/p>\n

They are unlikely to work regardless of the state of the economy. With the huge baby-boomer generation reaching retirement age and many of them retiring, the population of those out of the labor force is increasing and will continue to do so, most economists forecast.<\/p>\n

It\u2019s true that some of those out of the workforce are of working age and have given up looking for work. But that number is probably a small fraction of the 94 million Trump cited.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

And economist Mark Perry pulls up the details<\/a>, that of the 94 million (counting those ages 16 and up):<\/p>\n

88.5 million are classified as \u201cnot in the labor force\u201d \u2013 the remainder are unemployed but looking for work.<\/p>\n

of this group, 45% are retired,<\/p>\n

18.6% are disabled or ill,<\/p>\n

18% were full-time students,<\/p>\n

15.3% were people with \u201chome responsibilities\u201d (that is, people who reported being stay-at-home parents, caretakers for an elderly or disabled relative, or simply voluntary housewives),<\/p>\n

and the remainder, a mere 3.1%, were in the \u201cother\u201d category \u2013 the layabouts playing video games in Mom & Dad\u2019s basement.<\/p>\n

So, problem solved, right?<\/p>\n

After all, it\u2019s a good thing that more people are in college, and it\u2019s only natural that in an aging population, there\u2019d be more retirees than before.<\/p>\n

But look at the Labor Force Participation Rate<\/a>:<\/p>\n

\"https:\/\/data.bls.gov\/timeseries\/LNS11300000\"
https:\/\/data.bls.gov\/timeseries\/LNS11300000<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

There are two issues here:<\/p>\n

First, even if there are more students and more retirees, there is still a cause for concern with respect to the impact on the dependency ratio. \u00a0Usually this is expressed as the \u201cold-age dependency ratio\u201d \u2013 the number of workers available to support the elderly in a society. \u00a0But \u2014 though I\u2019ve not seen this particular metric \u2014 there is another sort of dependency ratio: \u00a0each student, each retiree, each sick or disabled person has to be supported by others, whether it\u2019s by family, or by the government, or by their future selves (in the case of students with loans).<\/p>\n

And for as many of the people in this non-working group who clearly belong there \u2014 my 78 year old parents, for instance \u2014 there are others who would, in a different set of circumstances, be working: \u00a0the students who are seeking college degrees because employers demand them for work that in itself doesn\u2019t require any more than a high school diploma, the retirees who left the workforce because they couldn\u2019t find a new job due to age discrimination (and are \u201cnot in the labor force\u201d because they abandoned looking) or who left voluntarily but really shouldn\u2019t have due to inadequate retirement savings; the disabled who would be able to work with accommodation or who shouldn\u2019t really be disabled in the first place (that is, the addicts of various kinds); the stay-at-home parent whose potential income is too low to cover the cost of childcare or who defers re-entering the workforce because of the expectation that it\u2019ll be too difficult to find a well-paying job.<\/p>\n

Second, even for the prime working age group, there has been a drop, and, what\u2019s more, there is a considerable variance between men and women; the OECD data<\/a> shows this split:<\/p>\n

\"https:\/\/fred.stlouisfed.org\/graph\/?id=LREM25TTUSA156N,LREM25MAUSA156S,#0\"
https:\/\/fred.stlouisfed.org\/graph\/?id=LREM25TTUSA156N,LREM25MAUSA156S,#0<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

(Strictly speaking this is the employment rate rather than the labor force participation rate, which also includes jobseekers. \u00a0To be honest, I just wasn\u2019t able to find the latter rate split out by sex for this \u201cprime working age\u201d group, but the patterns still hold true.)<\/p>\n

The drop in male labor force participation, post-college, pre-retirement, has been a long-term trend, which was offset by the increasing participation of women in the paid workforce, up until the late 90s, when it has been declining, even when considering men and women together.<\/p>\n

Which means that there are \u201cfuture of men\u201d reasons to be concerned as well.<\/p>\n

Of course, the total labor force participation rate now, is at a level last seen in 1976. \u00a0So maybe, in the same way as we all did just fine up until then, we\u2019d be just fine with returning to lower levels? \u00a0But that assumes we\u2019re OK with returning to a prior generation\u2019s lower material living standards and higher marriage rates.<\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/p>\n

Image: \u00a0men participating in the labor force. \u00a0OK, a photo of Waterloo Street in London, from our vacation.<\/p>\n<\/body><\/html>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

So at his quasi-State of the Union, President Trump (I know, it\u2019s strange to be using that title) said that there were 94 million people out of the labor force, and the AP, in its fact check, said, \u201cyou dummy, this number includes all the retirees, and the disabled, and stay-at-home parents, and students, etc., […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2209,"featured_media":5053,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[18],"class_list":["post-6167","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-labor-force-participation"],"yoast_head":"\nThe 94 million matter<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"So at his quasi-State of the Union, President Trump (I know, it's strange to be using that title) said that there were 94 million people out of the labor\" \/>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, 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