worker participation July 2014

You can follow the link or read below to see that worker participation rose 1/10th of a percent to 62.9, so it is hovering very slightly above the lowest rate recorded in the past ten years. That would be 62.8%, which happens to be what was recorded for 5 of the last 10 months.

I believe this rate refers to the total percentage of Americans over 16 who are counted as being in the workforce, including part-time workers and those who work enough part-time jobs to be counted as working full-time.

So although unemployment rose from 6.1 to 6.2, worker participation also rose from 62.8 and 62.9, which seems to indicate that unemployment is rising because more people are looking for work, which is why we could still see job growth of over 200,000 for the most recent month. At present, I can't substantiate the rumor that every single newly hired worker is being hired in Washington, D.C. to make sure that nothing gets done.

Series Id:           LNS11300000
Seasonally Adjusted
Series title:        (Seas) Labor Force Participation Rate
Labor force status:  Civilian labor force participation rate
Type of data:        Percent or rate
Age:                 16 years and over

Download: 

Year	Jan	Feb	Mar	Apr	May	Jun	Jul	Aug	Sep	Oct	Nov	Dec	Annual
2004	66.1	66.0	66.0	65.9	66.0	66.1	66.1	66.0	65.8	65.9	66.0	65.9
2005	65.8	65.9	65.9	66.1	66.1	66.1	66.1	66.2	66.1	66.1	66.0	66.0
2006	66.0	66.1	66.2	66.1	66.1	66.2	66.1	66.2	66.1	66.2	66.3	66.4
2007	66.4	66.3	66.2	65.9	66.0	66.0	66.0	65.8	66.0	65.8	66.0	66.0
2008	66.2	66.0	66.1	65.9	66.1	66.1	66.1	66.1	66.0	66.0	65.9	65.8
2009	65.7	65.8	65.6	65.7	65.7	65.7	65.5	65.4	65.1	65.0	65.0	64.6
2010	64.8	64.9	64.9	65.2	64.9	64.6	64.6	64.7	64.6	64.4	64.6	64.3
2011	64.2	64.2	64.2	64.2	64.2	64.0	64.0	64.1	64.2	64.1	64.1	64.0
2012	63.7	63.9	63.8	63.7	63.8	63.8	63.7	63.5	63.6	63.7	63.6	63.6
2013	63.6	63.5	63.3	63.4	63.4	63.5	63.4	63.2	63.2	62.8	63.0	62.8
2014	63.0	63.0	63.2	62.8	62.8	62.8	62.9

men in their prime

I just posted on the recovering economy, and so it makes sense that one of the very next articles I read online would suggest that this is hardly your father's recovery--particularly in the sense that he might not be working. Middle-aged male worker participation rates (what Brett Arends calls "the Guy Rate") remain among the lowest ever recorded:

http://www.smartmoney.com/invest/strategies/what-does-bernanke-know-1332799616772/?link=SM_hp_ls4e#article_tab_article

And the past couple weeks, Atticus Books has shared some rough-draft memoir about my father's experiences in relation to his father and son, and although the year is 1991, the song resonates somewhat with the current situation, or at least the malaise we're hopefully climbing out of.

Here's part two:

http://atticusbooksonline.com/summer-1991-broke-and-back-in-philly-part-2

and in case you missed it, part one:

http://atticusbooksonline.com/summer-1991-broke-and-back-in-philly-part-1

and an earlier section posted at When Falls the Coliseum:

http://whenfallsthecoliseum.com/2011/06/19/no-returns/

For now, we'll let the URL links hang out in public, but maybe banish them to hyperlink status later in the week.