Reply #10: Ah HA!! Something *DID* change. Here's an EPI article from Feb. 2007 >>>>>>>

[Roland99]

http://www.epi.org/content.cfm/webfeatures_econindicators_jobspict_20070202

Extensive revisions in today's release, however, reveal faster job growth than was previously reported in prior months. In 2006, for example, employment grew by 2.2 million, 405,000 more than was reported last month. Over the course of the full recovery (beginning November 2001), payrolls added about one million more jobs than were originally reported. Yet even with these additions, the overall jobs recovery still remains weak in historical terms, with jobs growing at half the rate of the 1990s recovery (4.9% vs. 10%).

...

Today's release incorporates the annual benchmark revision wherein the BLS adjusts its payroll data based on more complete information about job growth. The revision increased the level of jobs last March (the month by which the revised data are phased into the survey) by 752,000, a historically large upward revision. As noted above, while this addition obviously improves the recent jobs record, it does not alter the uniquely weak historical performance over the current recovery.

The Household Survey was also revised to reflect changes in population estimates. While the Bureau does not incorporate these revisions into earlier data, they do provide a historically consistent series of labor force growth, one that incorporates all recent changes to population estimates.

The chart below shows yearly growth in the labor force (along with a moving average to bring out the underlying trend). What is important to note here is that labor force growth has accelerated in recent months, and is again growing relatively quickly, at about the same rate as in 2000 (around the last business-cycle peak). This acceleration belies an oft-repeated claim that labor force growth underwent a structural downshift in the 2000s, with various groups supposedly opting to leave the job market for non-economic reasons.

But yet my data in the OP shows the changes going back to a year before that even!!


And here's a nice chart showing how this "recovery" is lagging WAY behind any previous recovery period: