While Obama has repeatedly touted the sub-5.0% unemployment rate (4.9% most recently) as confirmation his “economic recovery” has been successful, what has received far less media attention has been the unprecedented surge in Americans no longer in the labor force, which as of August stood at a near-record 94.4 million.
And while the traditional response by economic apolists and the media has been that this number is the result of a demographic change in US society, with mostly older workers no longer in the labor pool, we have over the years argued that that is misleading, and that millions of prime-aged workers have fallen out as a result of drastic changes to America’s job market, coupled with structural lack of demand for legacy jobs, which has – for example – sent the number of employed waiters and bartenders to all time highs even as the number of manufacturing workers is lower than it was in December 2014. – READ MORE
