sailingaway
04-07-2013, 12:17 AM
There were plenty of depressing numbers from the labor market Friday. Most striking to us wasn't the unemployment rate of 7.6 percent— down a tick. It wasn't the 88,000 jobs created in March — too few to sustain a recovery. No, the number that held the gravest long-term implication was 496,000. That's how many fewer people held jobs or were actively seeking them, compared with February.
In March, that is, the steadily declining U.S. workforce dropped by another 496,000, the Bureau of Labor Statistics reported. Nearly 90 million Americans ages 16 or older are not working, or looking for work. Adjusted for population growth, fewer Americans now work than at any time since 1979.
Expect those statistics to drive a fierce political debate on why, nearly four years after the end of the Great Recession, the pace of recovery remains alarmingly sluggish. Democrats will argue that the economy needs renewed stimulus, despite Republican desires to reduce spending and borrowing. Republicans will argue that Democrats need to focus more on tax policies that promote job creation and less on ... taxing.
The March numbers are preliminary — one reason it's important not to make too much of one month's snapshot. But this trend has been accelerating for a decade: Fewer Americans have jobs, want jobs or can get jobs. The decline in the "participation rate," as it's called, had slowed in the second half of 2012. We viewed the leveling off as a hopeful sign that more people were being drawn back into the working economy as conditions improved. The new numbers show the slide resuming.
All of which sounds more like sedentary, slow-grow Europe than the historically go-get-'em United States. Americans like to think of their nation as an engine of growth, not a park bench. This perception — this reality — of too many people standing on the economy's sidelines haunts the land. The question is why.
On Friday, the Obama administration was quick with its answer: "We are getting older as a nation," Alan Krueger, chairman of the president's Council of Economic Advisers, said in an interview. As more baby boomers approach retirement age, many step out of the rat race.
Yes — to a point. The nation's participation rate did soar from the 1970s through the 1990s as better education and workplace opportunities encouraged women to find jobs outside the home. That trend peaked years ago. Now the dominant demographic trend in the participation rate is indeed the aging of the workforce. But it's not the whole story.
Many Americans have been discouraged by the poor job market and given up actively looking for work. Many have been unemployed for so long they've become practically unemployable. Many young people, unable to find the jobs they want, are betting (often with borrowed money) that additional schooling will put them in a better position careerwise than taking whatever's available today.
As workforce participation has declined, social-safety-net participation has expanded. Food-stamp and unemployment-benefit programs have boomed since the recession began at the end of 2007. So has Social Security: Americans who were eligible to retire when the economy tanked poured into the government retirement program. Others below retirement age qualified for Social Security disability, which has expanded in part because of relaxed eligibility standards. Both programs have cut the share of Americans in the labor force.
As Americans keep telling pollsters, this is not the economy they want. Most Americans say they want to work. For the nation to regain prosperity, most Americans need to work: Having a huge part of the population out of the workforce reduces growth prospects for the future.
America has got to create jobs. They can't come fast enough.
http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/opinion/editorials/ct-edit-workforce-0406-jm-20130406,0,4048126.story
In March, that is, the steadily declining U.S. workforce dropped by another 496,000, the Bureau of Labor Statistics reported. Nearly 90 million Americans ages 16 or older are not working, or looking for work. Adjusted for population growth, fewer Americans now work than at any time since 1979.
Expect those statistics to drive a fierce political debate on why, nearly four years after the end of the Great Recession, the pace of recovery remains alarmingly sluggish. Democrats will argue that the economy needs renewed stimulus, despite Republican desires to reduce spending and borrowing. Republicans will argue that Democrats need to focus more on tax policies that promote job creation and less on ... taxing.
The March numbers are preliminary — one reason it's important not to make too much of one month's snapshot. But this trend has been accelerating for a decade: Fewer Americans have jobs, want jobs or can get jobs. The decline in the "participation rate," as it's called, had slowed in the second half of 2012. We viewed the leveling off as a hopeful sign that more people were being drawn back into the working economy as conditions improved. The new numbers show the slide resuming.
All of which sounds more like sedentary, slow-grow Europe than the historically go-get-'em United States. Americans like to think of their nation as an engine of growth, not a park bench. This perception — this reality — of too many people standing on the economy's sidelines haunts the land. The question is why.
On Friday, the Obama administration was quick with its answer: "We are getting older as a nation," Alan Krueger, chairman of the president's Council of Economic Advisers, said in an interview. As more baby boomers approach retirement age, many step out of the rat race.
Yes — to a point. The nation's participation rate did soar from the 1970s through the 1990s as better education and workplace opportunities encouraged women to find jobs outside the home. That trend peaked years ago. Now the dominant demographic trend in the participation rate is indeed the aging of the workforce. But it's not the whole story.
Many Americans have been discouraged by the poor job market and given up actively looking for work. Many have been unemployed for so long they've become practically unemployable. Many young people, unable to find the jobs they want, are betting (often with borrowed money) that additional schooling will put them in a better position careerwise than taking whatever's available today.
As workforce participation has declined, social-safety-net participation has expanded. Food-stamp and unemployment-benefit programs have boomed since the recession began at the end of 2007. So has Social Security: Americans who were eligible to retire when the economy tanked poured into the government retirement program. Others below retirement age qualified for Social Security disability, which has expanded in part because of relaxed eligibility standards. Both programs have cut the share of Americans in the labor force.
As Americans keep telling pollsters, this is not the economy they want. Most Americans say they want to work. For the nation to regain prosperity, most Americans need to work: Having a huge part of the population out of the workforce reduces growth prospects for the future.
America has got to create jobs. They can't come fast enough.
http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/opinion/editorials/ct-edit-workforce-0406-jm-20130406,0,4048126.story