91,541,000 Americans Not in Labor Force Climbs to Another Record in October
If people would have only listened to Barack last year, and went out and bought that thingamajig he told us to, the economy would be bristling now, and jobs would be easy to find. We must get that thingamajig before it is too late. -W.E.
CNSNews
The number of Americans who are 16 years or older and who
have decided not to participate in the nation's labor force has climbed to a
record 91,541,000 in October, according to data released Friday by the Bureau
of Labor Statistics.
The BLS counts a person as participating in the labor force
if they are 16 years or older and either have a job or have actively sought a
job in the last four weeks. A person is not participating in the labor force if
they are 16 or older and have not sought a job in the last four weeks.
From August to September, according to BLS, Americans not
participating in the labor force climbed from 90,473,000 to 90,609,000, with a
one-month increase of 136,000.
In October, it climbed again to 91,541,000, an increase of
932,000 during the month.
In January 2009, when President Barack Obama took office,
there were 80,507,000 Americans not in the labor force. Thus, the number of
Americans not in the labor force has increased by 11,034,000 during Obama's
presidency.
The labor force participation rate, which is the percentage
of the non-institutionalized population 16 years or older who either have a job
or actively sought one in the last four weeks, was 62.8 percent in October. It
has decreased by 0.4 percentage points from September when it was at 63.2
percent.
When Obama took office in January 2009, the labor force
participation rate was 65.7 percent.
The overall national unemployment rate – which is the
percentage of people participating in the labor force who actively sought a job
and did not find one in October – was 7.3 percent. That was a slight increase
from the 7.2 percent unemployment rate in September. When Obama took office in
2009, the unemployment rate was 7.8 percent.
The number of people actually employed decreased by 735,000
last month, decreasing from 144,303,000 in September to 143,568,000 in October.
When Obama took office in January 2009, there were 142,153,000 Americans
employed – meaning the number has increased by 1,415,000 over the past 58
months.
One reason for the increasing number of people not in the labor
force is the aging of the Baby Boom generation, whose members have begun
retiring – and are not being replaced by an equal number of young people
entering the labor force.
Another reason is that female participation in the labor
force has been declining. In January 2009, the female labor force participation
rate was 59.4 percent. In October 2013, it was 56.9 percent.