Saturday, May 12, 2012

The Baby Boomers Are Lowering The Workforce Participation Rate?

Following a week ago last Friday's disastrous job creation number and, especially, the record low workforce participation rate, liberals have been scrambling to come up with an excuse for the number of Americans no longer working.  The answer they came up with is that the declining labor participation rate is all due to the rate at which baby boomers are retiring.  I even had one "anonymous drive-by" idiot throw that in my face with a comment left on that Friday's blog entry about the employment report. 

But, the "baby boomer" excuse is a complete exaggeration.

First off, the baby boomer generation only started  to hit retirement age as of last year; and, the process won't be complete until 2029. Yet, the workforce participation rate has fallen each year since 2008; starting with the height of the recession and continuing through Obama's more than three years in office.  Secondly, there is no automatic retirement age for most seniors.  Many stay in the workforce because they just can't live off of Social Security checks and some small pension they may be getting.  Lastly, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics own data, the participation rate for the senior age group of 55 and older has remained constantly high with every other age group seeing substantial declines in the last four years.  (Click to see graph).

Those economists and media types who want to proliferate the "baby boomer lie" are totally in the tank for Obama and are a disgrace to the concept of fair and factual reporting. They have merely replaced the facts with  political ideology.

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