With an ever shrinking labor force contributing to a fuzzy unemployment rate, I thought it might be a better indicator to look at historical labor participation rates from when Reagan came into office to current, so that we can better tell where we really stand. And from the looks of the chart below, it ain’t good:
While the graph doesn’t denote the exact date, it runs from Jan/1980 – Feb/2012. You’ll notice we have been on a steady decline since 2008 with no improvements, which you can contrast with where we’ve been over 30+ years. And here’s a closer look at the last few years to get a better sense of what it looks like:
How is it that Obama can claim any job growth when it’s clear the labor force is on a downward trend? Labor force shrinkage means we are losing jobs, period. Forget about the nuances, the news here is the trend itself. And we see no marked improvement whatsoever.
This tells the real story of employment in America and why we need to elect a new president with the vision to increase employment in this country back to normal levels.