Why Is The Labor Force Participation Rate In The U.S. At A 36 Year Low?

Should we be concerned that the percentage of Americans that are either working or looking for work is the lowest that it has been in 36 years? In August, an all-time record high 92,269,000 Americans 16 years of age and older did not “participate in the labor force”. And when you throw in the people that are considered to be “in the labor force” but are not currently employed, that pushes the total of working age Americans that do not have jobs to well over 100 million.

The Next Generation Will Have It Worse, Most Americans Say

Employers have been creating jobs at a good clip this year, but Americans are too exhausted and discouraged by the pain of the recession and slow recovery to see much cause for optimism. That’s the conclusion of a new report surveying the economic sentiment of workers, released Thursday by the John J. Heldrich Center for Workforce Development at Rutgers University.