Friday, October 3, 2014

Labor Force Participation Lowest Since Carter Administration

While the President and his supporters may love that the official unemployment numbers released today by the federal Bureau of Labor Statistics for September; the lowest monthly report since July of 2008. But the devil is in the details and are much more ominous.

What’s bad about the 5.9 percent official unemployment rate? Further into the BLS repot, it’s noted the labor force participation rate dropped to 62.7 percent. That’s also a record of sorts, but not something to celebrate. The labor force participation rate has not been that low since February of 1978! This translates to 92.6 million Americans NOT in the workforce.

No wonder that official rate is so low. But there’s trouble evident in the factor that really counts. The alternative U-6 unemployment rate — the rate that includes the unemployment, underemployment and those who aren’t looking for work because they have given up — is double the official rate at 11.8 percent.

Not even the President’s most ardent supporters can deny that the economy, and the jobless numbers, rest on precarious footing.  The radical left-wing Center for American Progress noted “beneath the top line numbers, [the job market] still has a long way to go before it returns to historically healthy conditions.”