RE: Why is this a “stunning” figure? The population not in the labor force includes tens of millions of retirees.
We really should not be counting retirees. I’d like to know if they have a statistic that filters those who are retired out of the picture. THAT will give us a true indicator of those who are actively looking for work and not finding it ( i.e., how dire or how good the job market is ).
There were about 32 million people collecting Social Security retirement benefits in 2000, and about 45 million in 2017. There's 13 million new retirees right there, and that doesn't even include the people over the age of 62 who are eligible to collect SS but elect not to start yet.