Friday, September 6, 2013

Declining Labor Force Participation Rates -- It's Not the Boomers

Don't blame the old people you ageists out there.  The decline in labor participation rates isn't due to the graying population leaving the workforce.  Quite the opposite.


The data are clear.  It is increasing proportions of the young and the middle aged who are no longer seeking work.  As for the staying in school response, that's a rational response for one, two or perhaps even three years while the economy is recovering.  But in the Obama's print, borrow and spend economy, staying in school is becoming a permanent strategy to avoid confronting an anemic recovery.

Even for an aging baby boomer like myself, who did retire and drop out of the workforce, lousy economic conditions played a role.  I had planned to retire in 2013 but left in 2011, when I realized during a downsizing at my place of employment, if I stayed I would be occupying a position that some younger person desperately needed.  In an era of economic strength my calculus would have been different, and my decision may have been as well.

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