Republicans Have Found a New Way to Attack the Obama Economy. Americans Won't Buy It.

[applegrove]

Republicans Have Found a New Way to Attack the Obama Economy. Americans Won't Buy It.

by Danny Vinik at the New Republic

http://www.newrepublic.com/article/120826/gop-wrongly-blames-labor-force-participation-rate-obama

"SNIP..................

Republicans still aren’t willing to admit that the economy has taken significant steps over the past 12 months, but their economic attacks on the president have shifted. No longer do they cite the unemployment rate as an indicator of the failure of Obamanomics. The new statistic du jour is the labor force participation rate (LFPR). Republicans aren’t wrong to be concerned about this number. But the reason it’s trending downward predates Obama—and the party’s newfound focus on this stat is indicative of the political problem that an improving economy poses for the GOP.

The labor force participation rate is the number of people who are either employed or actively looking for work as a share of the population that could be working. Under Obama, the rate has declined from 65.7 percent in January 2009 to its current rate of 62.7 percent, its lowest point since the late 1970s. (It peaked at 67.3 percent in 2000.)

.................

A better way to judge the labor market is the prime-age (aged 25-54) labor force participation rate. This will eliminate the effects of students staying in school longer and baby boomers retiring, since it focuses just on people in their prime working years. At 80.8 percent, the prime-age LFPR is near its lowest point since the early 1980s. As you can see from this graph, this is a long-term trend in the American economy that predates Obama. The recession may have slightly accelerated, but it certainly didn’t start it.

......

This tells us that there is some other structural reason—one not related to the underlying economic conditions—that has caused working age Americans to drop out of the labor force over the past few decades. In December, the New York Times investigated this question by looking at a similar statistic, the employment-to-population ratio, which you will also now hear Republicans cite as a reason that Obamanomics has failed. The Times reports, one on men and one on women, didn’t come to any definitive answer, but it is clear that part of the reason Americans are exiting the workforce is that wages are too low for them to accept the jobs

...................SNIP"

And wages have fallen because of GOP policies that are anti-union and pro outsourcing. Typical GOP sociopathy....blaming someone else for things that happened because of their actions.

[louis-t]

1. This is too complicated for the average fox viewer.

Got no legs. It will be a hoot to listen to your crazy uncle try to 'splain this.

[meow2u3]

2. Republicans blame everybody EXCEPT the real culprits for the economy

That is, their biggest bribers the guys who fill their campaign coffers and the Koch Bros., who are the masterminds (IMO) behind the attacks on the President.

[YoungDemCA]

3. "Americans are exiting the workforce because wages are too low for them to accept the jobs"

This. 1000X Times This.

Republicans, you're fooling no one. Well, no one besides your racist, poor-hating fundie-Christian "base."