Friday, April 06, 2012

U.S. Labor Force Participation: A Picture Speaks A Thousand Words

Its a cliche for a reason.  The chart above is from the United States Department of Labor, dated today.  The data represented in the chart is labor force participation in the United States as reflected in today's report. 

Its a pretty simple concept.  At any given time there are a relatively measurable number of millions of adults of working age in the United States.  "Labor force participation" or LPF, generally defined is the number of people between 16 and 64 that are working or looking for work less military and institutionalized persons in the same age group.  Even Keynesians concede labor force participation is one of the two most significant determinants of economic health.

The number of adults in the labor market has declined every month since the Labor/Socialist/Democrats took control of Congress in January of 2007.   This represents literally millions of people who are considered to have permanently transitioned from work to welfare to worse.

Labor force participation has collapsed under Barack Obama.   A more damning, if less aesthetically dramatic, indictment of LSD ideology is provided by a look at the long cycle from President Carter to President Obama.  The current labor force participation rate is ironically exactly where it was in April of 1980-the depths of the seemingly endless ennui` of the Carter Depression-63.8%.    In only sixty-two months, LSD control of the economy has extinguished an entire generation-30 years-of American employment growth.

At the same time the operating budget deficit has increased by one thousand percent.  President Obama presides over the largest number of Americans in poverty, subsisting on food stamps and state welfare in our national history.  The average American who has remained employed has seen the cost of their three biggest household expenditures, food, fuel and health care reach similar historical heights.  While half of Americans pay no federal income tax the other half face generational heights in federal, state and local taxes.

Not surprisingly, the experiment in European social welfare planned economics has required this President to borrow more money in 38 months than was borrowed by not only all of his forty three predecessors but the old Continental Congress thrown in for historical completion.

Change? You betcha.

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