In
this Dec. 15, 2009, file photo, President Barack Obama speaks about job
creation and the economic recovery during a visit to a Home Depot in
Alexandria, Va. (AP Photo/Susan Walsh, File)
(CNSNews.com)
- Barack Obama's presidency began with a record number of Americans not
in the labor force, and it's ending the same way.
The final jobs
report of the Obama presidency, released Friday, shows that the number
of Americans not in the labor force has increased by 14,573,000 (18.09
percent) since January 2009, when Obama took office, continuing a
long-term trend that began well before Obama was sworn in.
In
December, according to the Labor Department’s Bureau of Labor
Statistics, a record 95,102,000 Americans were not in the labor force,
47,000 more than in November; and the labor force participation rate was
62.7 percent, a tenth of a point higher than in November.
The
participation rate dropped to a 38-year low of 62.4 percent on Obama's
watch, in September 2015. It was only 3-tenths of a point higher than
that last month.
People
over age 16 who are no longer working or even looking for work, for
whatever reason (retirement, school, personal preference, or gave up),
are counted as not participating in the labor force.
When
President Obama took office in January 2009, 80,529,000 Americans were
not in the labor force, the highest number on record. That number rose
steadily during his two terms, reaching a record 95,055,000 in November
2016, then setting another record (95,102,000) in December.
BLS
said the December unemployment rate increased a tenth of a point to 4.7
percent, well below the Obama-era high of 10 percent. Last month, a
record 152,111,000 Americans were counted as employed, up 63,000 from
November; and the number of unemployed stood at 7,529,000, an increase
of 120,000 from the prior month.
But people who stop looking for a job are no longer counted as unemployed.
In
an interview with a Chicago reporter yesterday, Obama said he has done
"an enormous amount" to create greater economic opportunity for
Americans.
"I took an economy that was about to go into a Great
Depression, and we've now had a little over six years of straight
economic job growth, an unemployment rate that's down below 5 percent,
and incomes that have gone up and poverty that has gone down."
Obama
also conceded that "there are still folks out there who struggle and
communities that are still depressed." He called it an "ongoing battle."
"We
have to continue to work to make sure that kids are getting the best
education they can, that jobs are being located so that people in need
can access them, and that's going to be something that I suspect we'll
all be working on, and folks will still be working on after I'm gone."
During
Obama’s two terms in office, the number of employed Americans reached
its lowest point – 138,013,000 – in December 2009. Eight years later, in
December 2017, 14,098,000 Americans have been added to the employment
rolls.
The government collects payroll taxes from Americans who
work, and some of that money is spent on government programs that
support people who do not work. So the more who work, the better for the
economy.
In December, the nation’s civilian noninstitutionalized
population, consisting of all people age 16 or older who were not in the
military or an institution, reached 254,742,000. Of those, 159,640,000
participated in the labor force by either holding a job or actively
seeking one.
The 159,640,000 who participated in the labor force
equaled 67.3 percent of the 254,742,000 civilian noninstitutionalized
population.
According to BLS, total nonfarm payroll employment
rose by a lackluster 156,000 in December. Over the past 3 months, job
gains have averaged 165,000 per month.
Among the major worker
groups, the unemployment rates for adult men (4.4 percent), adult women
(4.3 percent), teenagers (14.7 percent), Whites (4.3 percent), Blacks
(7.8 percent), Asians (2.6 percent), and Hispanics (5.9 percent) showed
little change in December.
The number of long-term unemployed
(those jobless for 27 weeks or more) was essentially unchanged at 1.8
million in December and accounted for 24.2 percent of the unemployed. In
2016, the number of long-term unemployed declined by 263,000.
The business and economic reporting of CNSNews.com is funded in part with a gift made in memory of Dr. Keith C. Wold.
