[NoKoolAidforMe]

The recession is over. Our economy is growing. Everyone is employed.

Pay no attention to that man behind the curtain.

[SeekAndFind]

From ZERO HEDGE:

It is just getting sad now. In April the number of people not in the labor force rose by a whopping 522,000 from 87,897,000 to
88,419,000.  This is the highest on record. The flip side, and the reason why the unemployment dropped to 8.1% is that the labor force participation rate just dipped to a new 30 year low of 64.3%.

Labor force participation Rate:

People not in labor force:

[rwfromkansas]

I was surprised the CNN article on this openly said fairly on in the headline that the drop was due to people leaving the workforce.

[DeaconRed]

ZERO AKA Mr. Hooky Junk (A Cajun Term) will cook the books with the help of the LSM to show unemployment at 5% by October.
Guaranteed. . . . . . . .

[kabar]

The chart below, which incorporates pre-recession assumptions about labor force growth from the Bureau of Labor Statistics, shows how the jobs gap has evolved since the start of the Great Recession in December 2007, and how long it will take to close under different assumptions for job growth. The solid line shows the net number of jobs lost since the Great Recession began. The broken lines track how long it will take to close the jobs gap under alternative assumptions about the rate of job creation going forward.

If the economy adds about 208,000 jobs per month, which was the average monthly rate for the best year of job creation in the 2000s, then it will take until February 2020—8 years—to close the jobs gap. Given a more optimistic rate of 321,000 jobs per month, which was the average monthly rate for the best year of job creation in the 1990s, the economy will reach pre-recession employment levels by April 2016—not for another four years.

[FreeAtlanta]

Rush keeps talking about the fewer jobs causing the rate to drop, but that is silly. It is the fewer people. Obama is making people disappear - hopefully only virtually.

The fewer numbers of workers is what drops the unemployment rate, not fewer jobs.

Any sensible person can see the trend is impossible. Unless people are dying, retiring or leaving the country, that flatting of the chart starting in 2008 is as phoney as a 3 dollar bill. You can take the chart back to 1948 using the bls.gov website Top searches and see that what happened starting in 2008 is VERY unusual and has not happened in the recorded history of the bls statistics. In fact, data that goes back during and before the GREAT DEPRESSION showed an steady increase in American workers. But, Enter Obama, master magician and conman extraordinaire. Now our workforce starts disappearing for the first time in our history!!!!

[I still care]

To quote Mr. Mom, “You’re doing it wrong.”

[FreeAtlanta]

I am sick of these convoluted, numbers twisting Obama loving bureaucrats. Unemployed should be considered almost all people are age 16 and up who are not working at least 20 hours a week.

If you are married and staying at home out of choice, then you should not be counted as unemployed. If you are retired and not seeking work, then you should not be considered unemployed.

[Jim from C-Town]

1/2 million people drop out of the jobs market. This is more than the entire population of the city of Los Vegas, or Oklahoma city just magically disapeared from the job rolls and unemployment ticked down.

They are just F’ing with us now!

[factmart]

I remember when Bush was President and you needed 450,000
jobs to stay even. Now 150,000 jobs to stay even.

Obama has got it made.

[OrangeHoof]

Any Republican who doesn’t soundly tar and feather Obama with the job numbers this campaign is not worth his salt.

[The Wizard]

clearly another manufactured number.....just take some more people off the table and the rate goers down.....all BS from bambi

[bmwcyle]

Polls and government figures are equal to fairy tales.

[Freedom_Is_Not_Free]

I don’t read this chart as jobs we lost. I read this chart as jobs we never should have had.

That entire 30 year arch of maximized workforce participation came from and only from, debt. Massive debt. That is the rise and fall of a massive debt bubble expresses as the jobs gained and lost resulting from said rise and fall.

That chart mirrors the home ownership rates during the housing bubble. It is identical in nature. It is not that we lost so many home owners, but that we had so many people that should never have been sold homes because they had no way to pay for them.

Guess waht? That workforce participation chart is the same -— we should never have created those jobs because they were not a product of savings and wealth creation, but of debt.

In both cases the rise and fall was based on funny money, not fundamentals.

The chart is just a symptom or indicator of our failure to create real wealth through savings and investment.