So you are suggesting that the majority, if not all, of the troops that come home, have remained unemployed?
Do you have any evidence to support that theory? Other than correlation equals causation....
Because... honestly, having worked with dozens of companies, companies LOVE to hire military personnel. If there is any fast-track to employment, it's having a military record on your resume.
I am suggesting no such thing, not even remotely!!!!!
Active military are not counted as part of the noninstitutional civilian population, which is the denominator in the calculation of the LPR, so the more military on active duty, the smaller the denominator and the higher the LPR. It is another example of how demographics effects the LPR independent of economic conditions, which is why the LPR is such a lousy economic indicator!!!!
But here's my problem.....
You are thus assuming that there was a significant increase in active duty military personnel. Significant enough to effect the civilian population numbers, and thus increase the LPR.
I don't see that as being true. Do you have evidence that's true?
Because everything that I see suggests the opposite. In raw numbers, active duty was lower in the 2003, than it had been in decades.
As a percentage of the population, military enrollment is lower than ever before.
Both would seem to indicate that the number of active duty troops, being at the lowest levels in American history, relative to the population, that we would expect the lowest labor participation rates in US history throughout the 00s. Instead, it's not nearly that bad.
So on what bases, what empirical evidence do you have of your claim?
But you are not counting the nearly 200,000 National Guard and reserves who made up over 40% of the active duty military in Iraq and over 50% in Afghanistan. That is more than enough to keep the LPR from falling for the few years it was holding steady during the Bush Regime.
Really?
200,000? That's a ton.... Like 0.0006% of the population....
According to the OECD, the total working population was 190 Million as of 2007. That would make those 200,000 at least 0.001% of the working population of the US.
Unless you have some other evidence to add, the national guard deal isn't convincing to me.
So when you have 300,000 regular military and 200,00 guard on active duty in the ME, that removes half a million from the DENOMINATOR of the LPR which will raise the LPR between .2% and .3%, which kept Bush's LPR steady around 66% for the duration of the ME wars after it had been falling steadily from the 67.2% he inherited. Once Obama came in you had the combined effect of the 500,000 military being gradually drawn down and gradually increasing the denominator and the
Boomers who just started retiring decreasing the numerator. Now that nearly all the military have been drawn down from active duty in the ME
you just have the Boomers retiring and the decline in the LPR has slowed down. For example, In Obama's first 2.5 years the LPR fell 1.7%, but in his last 2.5 years the LPR fell only 1.3%.
0.3%? First, just using math, that still does not make logical sense. The swing during the Bush years, was at most 1% change in LPR.
How does 0.3% change 1% of the working population?
Second, the swing from 2009 to 2013, was almost 5%. How does a 0.3% change, cause a 5% swing?
Third, if you want to blame deployment at all, that's fine, but then how could you claim that under Bush the deployment swing was 1%, and during Obama the deployment swing was 5%? If deployment caused the change under Bush, and ending deployment caused the change under Obama, wouldn't we expect the swing to be even lower?
Remember, the population removed to go fight the war, is relatively static. You don't send 200 soldiers out, and end up with 1,000 returning. But the population has increased during the war.
Yet the swing that you claim is due to the troops returning, is larger, then the swing caused by them leaving. That's illogical.
Fourthly, bringing troops back from deployment, doesn't mean they are not enlisted anymore. My brother-in-law when he got back from Iraq, was just as much an enlisted military man. He just wasn't deployed. As you said.... active duty. Many of the people deployed for war, were active duty before the war began, and many were active duty after the war was 'over' or ended by Bush or Obama.
In other words, I doubt there was any statistically relevant swing in LPR at all.
If you have evidence to the contrary, I'd love to see it.
Now the people retiring, that part I agree with. But the question is why? Is it possible that policies have made it so that retiring is desirable, and economic motivations are such, that more people are retiring than in the past? Because I have a hard time believing that baby boomers were just working hard and then suddenly in 2009, they magically all decided "hey Obama is pres, let's all retire now!".
I don't think that's a valid position.
to dismiss me.
And I use the word "think" lightly because you don't think .... you're a knee-jerk reactionary.
