And one other bombastic line of bull we'll be hearing - "Workforce Participation."

[progree]

12. Sorry, what other comment was I supposed to make about the age 25-54 demographic?

Last edited Sun Jul 29, 2018, 10:49 PM - Edit history (3)

I'm sure everyone here has read that much of the labor force participation (LFPR) decline is due to boomer retirements and the aging workforce in general. I was just trying to show that even in a younger demographic unaffected by boomer retirements, there is a sizable decline.

EDITED TO ADD THIS PARAGRAPH AND NEXT TWO AND THE GRAPH: Any financial / business media article that I've ever seen -- and this was true in the Obama era as well -- that delves even a little bit into the labor force participation rate -- talks about the boomer retirements and then looks at the age 25-54 so-called "prime working age" demographic, which doesn't have any retiring boomers. Just as I did. I didn't realize I was doing anything "wrong" or making rightie talking points.

The LFPR age 25-54 also began turning up during the Obama admin:

# October 2013 and Sept 2015: a sort of local double bottom at 80.6% -- the lowest since 1984
# Inaugural month, January 2017: 81.5% (a 0.9% gain during the Obama admin from the above local bottom)
# June 2018: 82.0% (up 0.5% since the inaugural month)

If anything, the rate of improvement has slowed down under Trump, but the graph is so ziggy and zaggy and statistically noisy that I can't make a firm statement about that.

Series Id: LNS11300060
Seasonally Adjusted
Series title: (Seas) Labor Force Participation Rate - 25-54 yrs.
Labor force status: Civilian labor force participation rate
Type of data: Percent or rate
Age: 25 to 54 years

January 2013 - June 2018:


January 1975 - June 2018:

You increased participation, referenced a shorter period, and highlighted a more noticeable increase - even though the range is still tiny.

"Highlighed a more noticeable increase"

Whatever. I don't recall "highlighting a more noticeable increase". It's you who is making an enormous hoo hah about it. To me, the slight increase at the end is the equivalent to being able to get one's dick up enough to pee in the toilet instead of on one's feet.

As for the shorter period -- 1977 thru June 2018 instead of 1976 thru June 2018 -- 492 months instead of 504 months, uhh, like that changes the whole picture, right? I started at 1976 when I first posted, but when I checked later, the graph was gone, and I couldn't generate the graph at the BLS site starting at 1976. For some reason I could generate the graph at 1977. Strange, but that's what happened.

LATER, on Edit: Then the 1977 onward graph disappeared! And I couldn't generate it at the BLS site! Nor 1976 onward either! So I did 1975 and saved it to imgur and posted.