What 'are so many of them doing?' 95 million not in US labor force

CNBC - so sorry ^ | December 2, 2016 | Jeff Cox

[FreedomNotSafety]

"It's a combination. There's no question a lot of them are retirees," Boockvar said. "No one wants to say, 'I want to get fired and sit on my butt.' But when people do lose their jobs, they're not being incentivized enough to go back to work compared to the benefits they get by not being at work."

[AlaskaErik]

I’m retired. I have no desire to go back to work. I don’t know what the cutoff is, but I’m under 65.

[ExSES]

As an anecdote..., I know a few who work strictly for cash now and draw SSA Disability, etc,! People may not have much formal education BUT..., when it comes to personal economics they play the angles and prosper!

[Right Brother]

I’m still trying to figure out the huge number of people in their mid to late 20s hanging around the coffee shop all day with their iPads. How do they survive? Mom and dad’s credit cards?

[mountainlion]

Normally you do not collect food stamps on retirement. There are about 110M people on food stamps. 95M that collected their unemployment and are no longer in the workforce should be counted as unemployed.

The say you can torture statistics until they say anything you want them to say.

[oh8eleven]

What 'are so many of them doing?'
I was downsized in 2007 at 60 y/o and was on unemployment for two years.
When that ran out, I officially retired and went on SS.

[batterycommander]

I’m 75, retired, and still working 6 or 7 days/week. I need the money for all my doctors, medicine, and charities. I’m doing a job that no one else can do. They are not teaching kids stem subjects any more. I would be a fool to give up $100 grand/year.

[DoodleDawg]

That 95 million is every person in the U.S. over the age of 16 who is not in the military and not institutionalized in some way. So it included retirees, students, stay at home moms, and those who do not work by choice as well as those who are unemployed.

[proxy_user]

I see no mention of stay-at-home moms. That is probably the largest group. If you have two or three children, you have a full-time job right there!

[Big Red Badger]

Turning 62, Social Security Could start.
Got a job,
Can’t see getting canned anytime soon.
67 is the plan to retire.
Hope I don’t need a feeding tube then.

[oldenuff35]

Too much free money out there. Hunger is a great motivation to get off your ass and go to work.

[babble-on]

In college or graduate schools of all types (medicine law etc), housewives (or husbands) out of the workforce, all retirees, people working “off the books” people in explicitly criminal enterprises

[Texan5]

We don’t have 20-something snowflakes here-rural kids usually join the military, go to work for their family’s small business/ranch or go off to college-this is strictly a working class area...

I’m over 65 and I have no desire to retire-couldn’t afford to anyway-people out here just start working for themselves, instead of someone else-we are all hoping the lean times are over so we will have more customers and enough income to actually live better-tourists and snowbirds from northern states who winter here in cabins and RVs are a major source of income-for the last 7 years or so they haven’t been financially able to come here for the winter and it has really hit us hard.

[McGavin999]

I’m in my 70’s and recently retired. I’m shocked at the number of working aged people in the various malls etc. you can tell they aren’t independently wealth, but they seem to have money to spend.

[FreedomNotSafety]

YOU ARE MY HERO! I hope I can do that. A remnant of the fabled “Protestant” work ethic that the US used to be famous for.

[Texan5]

The statistics show that you live longer and healthier if you keep working-it is probably true-I only know one person who is actually retired-he is always sick with something and he only hangs out with people in his burb in the city who think just like him-so he is crazier than a sh**house rat as well...

[fungoking]

I retired but haven’t been looking for a job. How do they count me?

[Tilted Irish Kilt]

RESIDENT OBUNGLER made the work week 30 hours per week.
If I work 6 days per week, at 5 hours per day I get my "full-time job" of 30 hours,
but I can't afford the transportation expense, and still support my family
What a Freakin IDIOT (!) to justify part-time and call it full time !

[Tilted Irish Kilt]

RESIDENT OBUNGLER made the work week 30 hours per week.
If I work 6 days per week, at 5 hours per day I get my "full-time job" of 30 hours,
but I can't afford the transportation expense, and still support my family
What a Freakin IDIOT (!) to justify part-time and call it full time !

[ForYourChildren]

I am finding this interesting. More articles like this one are showing up. And they aren't blaming Trump either - not yet anyway. Just pointing out the simple facts.

Such as...

"Taken together, the numbers show that there's more to meets the eye than a headline unemployment rate of 4.6 percent, the lowest since August 2007. Because that number ignores those not in the labor force, as well as workers at part-time jobs for economic reasons, it doesn't tell the whole story. A broader jobless measure is at 9.3 percent."

And this..

""I have a problem with people saying we're at full employment," said Dan North, chief economist at Euler Hermes North America, a trade credit insurance company. "We have a record 95 million people sitting on the sidelines. To me, that's hardly full employment.""