And the FED has to pretend the BLS Jobs number is good so they cannot make a rate cut.
Civilian non-institutional population - Participation rate now at 62.4 - down from 62.8 - Nov. 2023..
Not in labor force - 100,090,000 - Jan. 2023 - plus the officially unemployed of 5,719,000.. almost 106 million not working.
https://www.bls.gov/news.release/empsit.a.htm