In fact, participation rate was almost as low as it is now back in '80 when inflation was peaking--
--but the two are related in the way that the participation rate was kept low in order to fight inflation. Our happy two-decade plateau ended catastrophically in '09 and has yet to recover even with the latest labor report.
On that subject we were looking at the apparent contradiction between the -2.7% GDP and the falling unemployment rate. My thinking is that the unimproved participation rate puts paid to the jobs rate and we may not want to count on a recovering GDP for a while yet.