CHART - Just 58% Of Americans Over 16 Have A Job

NEW YORK (CNNMoney) -- The U.S. labor force is shrinking, as more Americans are giving up hope.  Last month, only 58.1% of Americans age 16 and over were employed, a significant drop from before the recession and the lowest since 1983.

That's especially worrisome to economists, who say a steady increase in those dropping out of the work force and not being counted in the unemployment rate is disguising just how bad the labor market really is.

"People are dropping out of labor force for all types of reasons," said Robert Brusca of FAO Economics. "And it's not a good trend. A good part of the wealth of a nation has to do with the proportion of population that works."

Continue reading at CNN...

Two related stories:

• CHART: Labor Force Participation At 64%, 27 Year Low
• CHART SHOCK: The REAL Unemployment Rate Is 23%

Comments

[john]

More Made Up Data From The BLS: Non-Farm Productivity Better Although Huge Prior Revision Wipes Out All 2011 Gains

http://www.zerohedge.com/news/more-made-data-bls-non-farm-productivity-better-although-huge-prior-revision-wipes-
out-all-2011

[snip]

The kicker yet again is in the revision, which speaks for itself: from 4.8% to 0.7% in Q1. US economic reporting is rapidly becoming a bigger joke than the Chinese Department of Truth.

[S. Gompers]

If it keeps going, we will look like Somalia...

[Harry Johnson]

Note that the last time this happened was during the reagan depression of the 1980's. It was then, as now, a direct product of the trickle down economics and the classic republicon paradigm of handing money over to the idle rich in the dreamworld that somehow they will do something productive with it to create jobs. Didn't work then , isn't workign now and never has.

[LugNut]

So Harry, I guess we hand the money over to the idle poor, so they can make babies that are raised in fatherless households; with food stamps, living in their Section 8 housing, that eventually gets destroyed. Oh wait, we've been doing that for forty years, and its destroyed every urban area in the country. If you don't believe me, come here to Detroit, and look at what was once called "The Paris of the Midwest", has been turned into a human cesspool. Do yourself a favor and please read the following article on how well-off poor are in this country compared to others.

http://www.heritage.org/research/reports/2007/08/how-poor-are-americas-poor-examining-the-plague-of-poverty-in-america