Labor Market Participation Rates

About ten years ago the labor market participation rate was approximately 66%. This month the DOL reported the labor market participation rate has dropped to 62.7%. Various reasons are given for the lower participation rate. Baby Boomers are reaching retirement age, the job market for the long term unemployed is still weak, some folks are staying in school or returning to school, maybe women are not entering the labor market in the numbers previously encountered, there has been an increase in the number of folks going on disability and there are probably some that are working for cash and not being counted properly. All of the above are true.

How stuff gets counted is problematic. While the Department of Labor does a pretty admirable job of giving us statistics, stuff gets in the way.

.The unemployment rate is the percentage of people in the labor force who are jobless, looking for a job, and available for work. The U-6 measure of labor under utilization, which decreased from 12.7 percent to 11.2 percent in 2014, is calculated with everyone included in the unemployment rate, as well as others who are not classified as unemployed. These are people who are: In either group described above.

The overall number of folks working has increased over 3 million people in the last year, from March 2014- March 2015, 2.3%.

One of the things folks need to remember is that increases in employment are not distributed uniformly across the nation and local conditions will outpace or lag the national averages.

Miami's employment growth was almost 91,000 (3.8%), while Chicago's employment growth was approximately 62,000 (1.4%). There are about 319,000,000 folks in the USA.

Labor market participation and the unemployment rate are both measures of economic health and better health means we probably won't sit on our money like we might have a few years ago.