For all of 2015, the highest labor participation rate was 62.9 percent in January: the lowest was 62.4 percent in September, and that 62.4 percent was the lowest in 38 years. The Bureau of Labor Statistics says the economy added 292,000 jobs in December, and the unemployment rate was unchanged at 5.0 percent -- for the third month in a row. In December, according to the Labor Department's Bureau of Labor Statistics, the nation’s civilian noninstitutional population, consisting of all people 16 or older who were not in the military or an institution, reached 251,936,000. Of those, 157,833,000 participated in the labor force by either holding a job or actively seeking one.
The 157,833,000 who participated in the labor force equaled 62.6 percent of the 251,936,000 civilian noninstitutional population. Ahead of this month's unemployment numbers, the Labor Department released an article examining why people who are not in the labor force are not working. It found that in 2014, 87.4 million people 16 years and older neither worked nor looked for work at any time during that year.
Of this group, 38.5 million people reported retirement as the main reason for not working. About 16.3 million people were ill or had a disability, and 16.0 million were attending school. Another 13.5 million people cited home responsibilities as the main reason for not working in 2014, and 3.1 million individuals gave “other reasons.” The self-reported reasons that people gave for not being in the labor force varied by age and gender, and the analysis includes charts comparing the reasons given by various worker groups in both 2004 and 2014.
Other notes from the December jobs report:
The report looked at peoples' non-participation in the labor force by age and gender for the years 2014 (the most recent year for which data is available) and 2004. In the year 2014, 763,000 men between the ages of 25 and 54 cited "home responsibilities" as their reason for not working or looking for work. Those 763,000 men were 1.2 percent of the total male civilian noninstitutional population in that age group. Back in 2004, 577,000 men in this age group (or 0.9 percent) cited "home responsiblities" as their reason for not working/not looking for a job. Men 25-54 were the only group to record an increase in "home responsibilities" as a reason for not working between 2004 and 2014.
Less educated men -- those with less than a college degree -- were more likely to claim "home responsibilities" as a reason for not participating in the labor force. Although far more women than men cited home responsiblities as their reason for not working, the percentage of women claiming this reason did not change from 2004 to 2014: In both of those years, 14.3 percent of women ages 25-54 said they did not work because of home responsibilities. Among 16- to 19-year-olds of both genders, the percentage citing home responsiblities dropped from 2.6 percent in 2004 to 2.0 percent in 2014; and in the 20-24 age bracket (both genders) the percentage dropped from 5.7 in 2004 to 4.3 in 2014.
Among these younger people, the percentage not in the labor force rose sharply and the most-often-cited reason for not working was school attendance. The proportion of men 25-54 who were not in the labor force rose from 9.2 percent in 2004 to 11.5 percent in 2014. In both years, the largest share of men in that age bracket who were not in the labor force reported illness or disability as their reason for not working. From 2004 to 2014, the percentage of men 25 to 54 who did not work or even seek a job because of illness or disability increased from 5.3 percent to 6.0 percent.
MORE
When did America stop being great?
Why isn't Hillary running on the great job creation?
