Every month for the past couple of years, I’ve been pointing out the nearly constant decline in the Labor Force participation numbers.
With unemployment taken out of the participation numbers, the actual share of people actually working in the economy today is as low as it’s been since they’ve been tracking the numbers.
The left has a brisk retort; “People are retiring!” Supposedly, enough baby boomers are leaving the workforce to cause the participation rate to drop.
As if that’s good news. Someone has to be working to pay into Social Security to pay for all those aging ex-hippies, after all! Having historically low labor force participation rates means more debt incurred to pay for statutory entitlements that we just can’t control.
So even if that were true – the slide in labor force participation is entirely due to baby boomer retirements – then that’s still bad news.
But it’s not true.
According to Mercatus, oldsters are faring much better in the workforce than younger workers.
No – much better:
Retirees aren’t retiring – and youngsters aren’t working.
At this rate, we’re going to have a nation of 50+ workers paying both for their parents and their kids.
If Romney / Ryan was in there they would be responding to data like this and they would be furiously trying to figure out how to safely undo 100 years of stupid central planing by the Fed and the federal government.
Lives are being destroyed. Intergenerational theft is inherent to the system.
The bond market *will* implode. The longer we put it off the worse it will be.
We are doomed.
Pingback: A Thousand Words | Shot in the Dark