http://cnsnews.com/news/article/ali-meyer/11472000-americans-have-left-workforce-obama-took-office11,472,000 Americans Have Left Workforce Since Obama Took Office
August 1, 2014 - 9:18 AM
By Ali Meyer
(CNSNews.com) - 11.4 million Americans age 16 and over have left the workforce since President Obama took office in January 2009, according to data released today from the Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS).
In July 2014, there were 92,001,000 Americans, 16 and over, who were classified as “not in the labor force,” meaning they not only did not have a job, but they didn’t actively seek one in the last four weeks.
This number has increased by 11,472,000 since January 2009, when the number of Americans not in the labor force was 80,529,000.
The number of Americans not in the labor force dropped slightly in July, down 119,000 from the 92,120,000 Americans not in the labor force in June.
The participation rate, which measures the percentage of the civilian non-institutional population that participated in the labor force by either having a job or actively seeking one, increased from 62.8 percent in June to 62.9 percent in July.
In July, the number of unemployed Americans increased by 197,000 (from 9,474,000 in June to 9,671,000 in July), meaning they did not have a job even though they were actively seeking one.
While the number of unemployed increased in July, so did the number of employed Americans: In June, there were 146,221,000 employed Americans, and that number climbed to 146,352,000 in July, a one-month increase of 131,000.
The unemployment rate increased from 6.1 percent in June to 6.2 percent in July.
