[quote=AN][quote=utcsox]Well, we do know that a large cohort of Americans (baby boomers) are aging. Americans are living longer which is a good thing. The overall labor participation rate will continue decline in the near future due to demographic changes. In 2006, BLS published a paper that project overall participation rate will continue to decrease until 2050 when it reached 60.4%. Of course, the Right wing type in this board will not mention this and use this obscure metric to insinuate that the decline is due to over generous benefits and subsidies. Here is the link of the paper:
http://www.bls.gov/opub/mlr/2006/11/art3full.pdf%5B/quote%5DAccording to the BLS, labor participation between 2005-2020 for :
65+ goes up from 15.1% to 21.5%
55-64 goes up from 62.9% to 67%
25-54 stays about flat at 82.8% to 83.7%
16-24 will be going down from 60.8% to 56.5%.
Here’s the BLS Civilian noninstitutional population between 2005-2020:
Total working population: 226k -> 257k
65+ – 35k -> 52k (~15% -> 20% of total)
55-64 – 30k -> 42k (13% -> 16% of total)
25-54 – 124 -> 126k (55% -> 49% of total)
16-24 – 36k -> 36k (16% -> 14% of total)
Base on these numbers, I don’t see how you can draw conclusion of baby boomer retiring as the cause for 5-6% drop in labor participation over the last 10 years or so.
Baby boomers are born between 1946 and 1964. Which mean they’re between 51-69. 66 being full retirement age today, most boomers are still working. Please enlighten me as to how boomer retiring is the cause of ~4% labor participation over the last 10 years? Or more specifically, over the last 6 years? The first boomer retired 3 years ago in 2012. Back then, we already started to see labor participation rate declining from about 66 to 64 and it continue to drop till 2014, where it plateau till now at about 62.5%. If boomer is the cause of the drop, then why are we seeing a plateau over the last year and a half? Shouldn’t we see more decline since even more boomer are retiring? Although according to BLS, the labor force participation for 65+ actually is going up not down. Which mean they’re not dropping of the work force like you’re insinuating.
BTW, who here insinuate that decline is due to over generous benefits and subsidies? I brought up benefits and subsidies to show that there are people who are not working who I would hope would like to work, but cannot find a job. Which cause them to need government assistant. You’re associating correlation with causation. I never said it was a generous benefits and subsidies was the cause of lower labor participation. I was just pointing out some correlating data. Stop trying to create straw man arguments. FYI, I’m not even a registered Republican, so it’s hilarious that I’m now being labeled as Right wing.[/quote]
“Base on these numbers, I don’t see how you can draw conclusion of baby boomer retiring as the cause for 5-6% drop in labor participation over the last 10 years or so.”
In the last 10 year, the highest labor participation rate is at 66.2% and the lowest is at 62.7%. This is 3.5% not 5-6%. You can see the dataset yourself below: http://data.bls.gov/timeseries/LNS11300000
” Although according to BLS, the labor force participation for 65+ actually is going up not down. Which mean they’re not dropping of the work force like you’re insinuating.”
The average participation rate is at 62.8% and 65+ is at 21%. And the labor participation rate of 65+ is actually going up not going down . Really?
And, you shall also aware that 50 to 54 will have a higher labor participation rate than 55 to 59 and so on and so fourth. People drop off the labor force gradually, not all at once at full retirement age: 66. The aging boomer will increase ratio of elder population vs. the overall population. We all know that elder population has lower labor participation rate than the younger participation rate. So, why is it so difficult to see that changing demographics is responsible for the dropping of overall labor participation rate?
In addition, you also see a huge decline in overall participation rate of 16 to 19 years old (50+% to 20+%). This is also a factor in our overall participation rate decline. This is probably due to more kids stay in high school.
I brought up benefits and subsidies to show that there are people who are not working who I would hope would like to work, but cannot find a job. Which cause them to need government assistant.
How does the charts you bought up show that exactly? Medicaid, government healthcare, and housing subsidies are also available to people who work and making less than certain income. There is no doubt that there is still slack in our labor market as the unemployment rate is still higher than what you expect at full employment; however, it is not causing most of the decline in overall labor participation rate.
