General Discussion
In reply to the discussion: Krugman: repubicans are "desperately trying to claim that the economic recovery now underway is an [View all]progree
(10,956 posts)Seems to me that there is too much discussion in the media of the Labor Force Participation Rate (the employed plus the jobless people who have looked for work in the last 4 weeks, all divided by the population) and not enough attention to what seemingly matters more -- the Employment to Population Ratio. Why aren't we celebrating the increase in the percentage of the population that is employed -- a figure that has been (slowly) moving up since the job market bottom, despite the growing wave of baby boomer retirements?
(The Population in the above is the civilian non-institutional population age 16 and over, yes, including all elderly people, even centenarians)
>> [font color = blue]73. Labor force participation rate is down. If baby boomers weren't retiring en mass- --all the other stats would look pretty shitty. <<[/font]
You are partly right that the unemployment rates U-3 (down 4.3 percentage points from the job market bottom) and U-6 (down 6.0 percentage points) would not be down as much if more boomers were in the labor force (thus increasing the denominator in the unemployment rate). But I can't think of any reason that the other statistics in #25 would be worse off if more boomers had stayed in the labor force.