The Feds Lie About Employment
As the labor participation rate and employment to population ratio linger near three-decade lows, the mouthpieces for the establishment continue to perpetuate the Big Lie this is solely due to the retirement of Boomers. It’s their storyline and they’ll stick to it, no matter what the facts show to be the truth. Even CNBC lackeys, government apparatchiks, and Ivy League educated Keynesian economists should be able to admit that people between the ages of 25 and 54 should be working unless they are home raising children.
In the year 2000, at the height of the first Federal Reserve induced bubble, there were 120 million Americans between the ages of 25 and 54, with 78 million of them employed full-time. That equated to a 65% full-time employment rate. By the height of the second Federal Reserve induced bubble, there were 80 million full-time employed 25 to 54-year-olds out of 126 million, a 63.5% employment rate. The full-time employment rate bottomed at 57% in 2010 and still lingers below 62% as we are at the height of a third Federal Reserve induced bubble.
Over the last 16 years, the percentage of 25 to 54 full-time employed Americans has fallen from 65% to 62%. I guess people are retiring much younger if you believe the MSM storyline. Over this same time period, the total full-time employment to population ratio has fallen from 53% to 48.8%. The overall labor participation rate peaked in 2000 at 67.1% and stayed steady between 66% and 67% for the next eight years. But this disguised the ongoing decline in the participation rate of men.
In 1970, the labor participation rate of all men was 80%, while the participation rate of women was just below 43%. Then Nixon closed the gold window, setting in motion a further debasing of the currency, unleashing politicians to promise voters goodies without consequences, and giving Wall Street bankers and Madison Avenue free rein to use propaganda to bury Americans in debt while convincing them trinkets and baubles were actually wealth.
The relentless inflation released by Nixon and the Federal Reserve, and perpetuated by Washington D.C. politicians, forced more women into the workforce over the next 30 years, as families could no longer make ends meet with just the husband working. Over the next 30 years, the labor participation rate of women soared to 60%, with the expected negative consequences of having tens of millions of children raised by strangers rather than their mothers. The resultant decline in the family unit and kids being brainwashed by government public school indoctrination has left generations of non-critical thinking zombies, easily manipulated by emotional appeals and false storylines.
As women entered the workforce in great numbers, the participation rate of men gradually declined from 80% to 75% by 2000. It then began a rapid descent and accelerated after the Federal Reserve created 2008 financial disaster. It now stands at 69.3%, just above its record low in 2015. In the 1950’s when 87% of men participated in the labor market, the country’s economy grew strongly, we produced rather than consumed, we saved before we spent, the family unit was strong, and men’s purpose in life was clear.
When over 30% of working age men aren’t participating in the labor force, trouble is brewing. It’s even worse when you consider the 25 to 54 year old male participation rate has declined from 97% in the 1950’s and 1960’s to below 88% today. Much of the anger building in this country is the result of men in their prime earning years seeing their jobs shipped overseas, outsourced, or taken by HB1 workers. The backlash against illegal immigrants is understandable.
Then there are the young men aged 16 to 24, who have seen their participation rate fall from over 70% in the early 1990’s to below 51% today. The 70% participation rate was consistent from the mid 1970’s through 2000. The precipitous decline is not due to mass enrollment in college, as college students worked when I was their age. There is nothing more volatile than millions of unemployed young men, an imploding economy, growing wealth inequality, and porous borders allowing millions of illegals to invade the country, taking jobs and straining the already bankrupt social welfare net.
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