For Too Many, the Job Market Isn't Working: Too many people are still not working or not even trying to find work

[SirLinksALot]

SOURCE: BLOOMBERG VIEW

URL: http://www.bloomberg.com/view/articles/2016-07-08/for-too-many-the-job-market-isn-t-working

By Betsey Stevenson


For all the encouraging headlines that the strong June jobs report has generated, it also illustrates a major challenge for the U.S. economy: Too many people are still not working or not even trying to find work.

The malaise can be remedied, if we can find the political will.

Despite the robust job growth of the past six years, people still aren’t participating in the labor force the way they used to. As of June, just 62.7 percent of the population had a job or was actively seeking one -- up a bit from the previous month, but still almost 5 percentage points below the 2000 peak.

One explanation is demographic: As the population ages, a larger percentage will naturally be retired. This explains about half of the decline in participation, and will keeping putting downward pressure on participation -- particularly as the baby-boom generation crosses the retirement threshold. The Congressional Budget Office expects the labor-force participation rate to decline another 2 percentage points by 2026.

Still, even if we look at people in the prime working years of 25 to 54, participation is depressed. At the beginning of 2000, 84 percent of prime-age adults were in the labor force. Today, only 81 percent are.

So why are so many people not participating? Do they just have better things to do? Or is something keeping them out? The answer is crucial to figuring out how worried policy makers should be, and what they can do.

A recent report from the president’s Council of Economic Advisers offers some useful insight. It finds that the decline in men’s participation is driven primarily by people with less than a bachelor’s degree -- people who have seen very little wage growth for decades, an indication of the weak demand for their services. Such poor opportunities mean that when workers leave or lose a job, they struggle to reenter the labor force. It’s even worse if they’ve been out of work for a long time. Many never return, particularly in the wake of recessions.

CLICK ABOVE LINK FOR THE REST....

[SirLinksALot]

[Free Vulcan]

And alot of people work cash under table too, while unfortunately claiming welfare and unemployment bennies at the same time.

[uglybiker]

Despite the robust job growth of the past six years....

They're kidding, right?

[Oceander]

And alot of people work cash under table too, while unfortunately claiming welfare and unemployment bennies at the same time.

Absolutely.  I had an acquaintance once who was in the process of divorcing an abusive husband.  He would show up to court in a BMW and then plead poverty, showing tax returns with almost no income, his EBT for food stamps and his medicaid.  Lucky for her, the idiot would run his cash through their joint bank account, so soon enough a comprehensive set of bank account statements made their way to court.  Then, after court, to the IRS.

His business was a cash intensive business, of course.