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Friday, December 12, 2014

The truth about unemployment

157133 600 Poverty Wage Jobs cartoons
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By Mindy Fischer

As the economy continues to grow and strengthen it is amazing to me that Conservatives are not only disputing the facts, but they are actually sticking to their story about how President Obama is destroying America.

One thing that truly has been driving me crazy is that every time I post anything about the unemployment rate or new jobs numbers, I inevitably get a bunch of righties spouting off their favorite Fox News talking points.

And one of the most common is the participation rate argument. They love to say that the only reason that the unemployment rate is falling is because most unemployed Americans have given up looking for work.

OK, so you want to talk about the employment participation rate? Great….let’s do that.

Now it is true that the participation rate has been decreasing. But it is not true that it’s because people have given up looking for work. When we take a look at WHY people are dropping out of the job market we find a few important things.

The biggest contributing factor to the drop in labor force participation is simple. Baby boomers are retiring. In addition the number of disabled persons (mostly over the age of 55) is increasing, which of course is also directly being impacted by the baby boomer generation.

As a matter of fact, giving up looking does not even make the top 3 list of why the rate is dropping. The third reason, according to the numbers is that many young people have decided to go back to school.

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Now I do admit that the number of people who have just given up looking for work is still too high. And the truth is that the overall participation rate is likely to remain higher than anyone would like. But the real reason for that is directly due to retirement. And the fact of the matter is that the number of Americans who’ve given up pales in comparison to the top 3 reasons.


Mindy Fischer is a lefty-liberal, freelance political writer. Follow her on Facebook and on Twitter.