Latest Wrinkle In The Jobs Debate: Blame The Boomers
Since late 2007, the U.S. labor force has shrunk significantly, raising questions about where former workers have gone and why.
Now the White House Council of Economic Advisers says it has found answers, and compiled them into a detailed research report released Thursday.
As it turns out, most of the missing workers have been hiding in plain sight. They are retiring baby boomers.
"In 2008, the U.S. economy collided with two historic forces. The first force was the Great Recession," the report said. And the second was "the demographic inflection point" when the oldest boomers, born in 1946, became eligible for Social Security early retirement benefits.
That age shift explains a lot about what's been happening with the labor force participants, defined as people who have jobs or want them. So a 62-year-old who retires would not be part of the country's available labor pool.
Over the last seven years, the labor force, as a share of the overall population, has fallen from 65.9 percent to 62.8 percent, a decline of 3.1 percentage points.
Economists have been arguing over the reasons for this dwindling labor supply, with some conservatives assigning nearly all of the blame to President Obama's economic policies.
i i