Tag: Millennials

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US: Two Views of Declining Labor Force Participation

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US: Two Views of Declining Labor Force Participation

Ridgewood NJ, Here is an interesting economics view of the US labor force participation decline from head economist at Citi.  

The interesting thing is that there are quite a few forces at work; older population, kids staying in school longer or going for higher degrees, women opting out, etc.  Most important is the last point, the BLS projects it will continue to decline for another 10 years.


US: Two Views of Declining Labor Force Participation


1●It’s Temporary. Drop in labor force participation (LFPR) since 2007 reveals cyclical effect of unemployment previously masked by dominant demographics and too brief recessions.
–Downturn in LFPR associated with surge in long-term unemployed
–Correlation at state level between rising unemployment and falling LFPR.
–Large increase in discouraged workers, non-participants who want a job.
–Job-finding rates fell proportionately for recent and long-term jobless.
●Delayed response (increase) to falling unemployment implies that LFPR will rise strongly for several years after the economy reaches full employment.

2-●No, it’s Permanent. Major part of LFPR drop reflects mix of demographic, structural and other policy effects that may be only partially reversed over only a very long period.
–Population shifting to less-attached cohorts, including older, still prime-age workers.
–LFPR among prime-age women falling since 2000, high marginal tax rates at low incomes.
–Rising education enrollment.
–Accelerating trend in disabilities suggests more permanent hysteresis effect.
–Recent declines in discouraged workers and ‘not in labor force who want a job’

BLS projects that LFPR will decline another 1.5 percentage points by 2022.

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Youth Unemployment at 15.5% in April

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Youth Unemployment at 15.5% in April

Washington, DC – (5/2/14) – Generation Opportunity, a national, non-partisan youth advocacy organization, is announcing its Millennial Jobs Report for April 2014. The data is non-seasonally adjusted (NSA) and is specific to 18-29 year olds:

The effective (U-6) unemployment rate for 18-29 year olds, which adjusts for labor force participation by including those who have given up looking for work, is 15.5 percent (NSA). The (U-3) unemployment rate for 18-29 year olds is 9.1 percent (NSA).

The declining labor force participation rate has created an additional 1.932 million young adults that are not counted as “unemployed” by the U.S. Department of Labor because they are not in the labor force, meaning that those young people have given up looking for work due to the lack of jobs.

The effective (U-6) unemployment rate for 18-29 year old African-Americansis 23.3 percent (NSA); the (U-3) unemployment rate is 16.6 percent (NSA).

The effective (U-6) unemployment rate for 18-29 year old Hispanics is 16.1 percent (NSA); the (U-3) unemployment rate is 9.5 percent (NSA).

The effective (U-6) unemployment rate for 18-29 year old women is 13.1 percent (NSA); the (U-3) unemployment rate is 8.3 percent (NSA).

Patrice Lee, Director of Outreach at Generation Opportunity, issued the following statement:

“False promises mean very little when we are faced with unemployment numbers in the double digits and crippling student debt. We don’t want slogans, we want jobs.”

“Only 37 percent of young people approve of the president’s handling of the economy. Thirty-one percent approve of his handling of the federal budget deficit. We recognize that our unsustainable deficits and skyrocketing national debt hurt our ability to grow the economy and create opportunity.”

On Tuesday, Harvard’s Institute of Politics released a new poll of 18-29 year olds:

Just 47% of 18-29 year olds approve of President Obama’s job performance, the lowest approval rating recorded during his entire presidency
Only 39% approve of the president’s job performance on healthcare
More than twice as many young people believe that, generally speaking, the nation is on the wrong track rather than the right direction
Self-identified conservatives are 10 points more likely to vote in the 2014 midterm elections than self-identified liberals

Generation Opportunity is also issuing a revision for March’s Millennial Jobs Report. The overall U-3 unemployment rate for 18-29 year olds for March 2014 was 10.9%, two points higher than previously reported.

Generation Opportunity is a national, non-partisan organization advocating for economic opportunity for young people through less government and more freedom.

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Why millennials have abandoned Obama

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Why millennials have abandoned Obama

By Dana Milbank, Published: March 14

The day before the Iowa caucuses in 2008, I wrote about the massive crowds of young people at Barack Obama rallies, noting that his candidacy would collapse “if they don’t show up.”

The next night, after Obama’s victory celebration in Des Moines, Obama strategist Steve Hildebrand spotted me in a crowd. “The kids showed up!” he said fiercely.

They did. But where are they now?

An army of 15 million voters under 30 swept Obama past Hillary Clinton and John McCain and to the presidency in 2008. More than 12 million helped him return in 2012. But now his presidency is on the line — and the Obama youth are abandoning him in his hour of need.

The administration announced last week that only 1.08 million people ages 18 to 34 had signed up for Obamacare by the end of February, or about 25 percent of total enrollees. If the proportion doesn’t improve significantly, the result likely will be fatal for the Affordable Care Act.

The administration had said it needed 40 percent of registrants in the health insurance exchanges to be young adults, or about 2.7 million of the expected 7 million total. Overall enrollment is also below target. But the alarming shortcoming is the number of young participants, which would make the insured population older and sicker and the program too expensive.

This week saw the release of Obama’s sit-down with comedian Zach Galifianakis, of “The Hangover” fame, to encourage the young to join the Obamacare exchanges. It was good comedy (the host, in the White House Diplomatic Reception Room, rolled up his sleeve to show Obama his “spider bites”), and according to the White House it had the desired result: a boost in traffic to HealthCare.gov. Yet the fact that Obama sought Galifianakis’s help was an indication of how much the president’s standing has slipped among young Americans. Six years earlier, he had been a demigod among that demographic.

What went wrong? The president and his aides failed to keep his youth movement engaged. But part of the problem also is the inability of the millennial generation to remain attached to a cause. The generation that brought Obama to power is connected online but has no loyalty to institutions — including, it turns out, the Obama White House.

In 2008, “the level of innovation and engagement in the election, especially the primaries, was amazing, but then the level of engaging them during the administration was extremely disappointing,” says Peter Levine, a Tufts University professor who specializes in youth civic involvement. “He had a potential army for legislative success and implementation, but the Obama administration did not do that. At a critical moment in the first term, they did not turn to them. . . . They got rapid youth demobilization.”

Young voters, after playing a big role in the campaign, became little more than an e-mail list for the White House and Obama’s Organizing for Action group. Then came health-care reform. The millennials, very liberal overall, saw Obama’s plan as too timid; they were disillusioned by his failure to fight for the “public option” of government-run health plans.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/dana-milbank-obama-has-a-problem-connecting-to-young-on-health-care/2014/03/14/1e6c5f40-ab95-11e3-98f6-8e3c562f9996_print.html

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Labor Force Participation Hits Record Low for Americans in Their 20s

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Labor Force Participation Hits Record Low for Americans in Their 20s
March 11, 2014 – 11:09 AM
By Ali Meyer

(CNSNews.com) – The labor force participation rate in 2013 for Americans in their twenties hit the lowest level recorded since 1981, when the Bureau of Labor Statistics started releasing employment data on people in the full age bracket of 20 through 29.

The labor force participation rate for people ages 20 through 24—which BLS has been tracking since 1948—hit a 42-year low in 2013.

Since 2008, the last year before President Barack Obama took office, the number of Americans in their twenties who were not in the labor force during the average month has climbed from 8,756,000 to 10,511,000—an increase of 1,755,000 or 20 percent.

– See more at: https://www.cnsnews.com/news/article/ali-meyer/labor-force-participation-hits-record-low-americans-their-20s#sthash.HnTO2vDq.dpuf

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Almost One in Four 26-Year-Olds Still Live with Parents

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Almost One in Four 26-Year-Olds Still Live with Parents

A ten-year survey of millennials reveals that almost one in four (22.6%) 26-year-olds are still living with their parents.

The U.S. Department of Education report confirmed that, if you are tired of living with Mom and Dad, then do your homework and stay in school. According to the survey titled “Where Are They Now,” education makes a difference: generally those with more schooling were less likely to be living at home.

The study shed some light on how older millennials have been faring during the Great Recession. According to a Pew Research analysis of the 2012 data, lower levels of employment, an increase in college enrollment, and a decrease in young people getting married are major factors in the increase of millennials living at home.

https://www.breitbart.com/Big-Government/2014/02/06/Almost-One-in-Four-26-Year-Olds-Still-Live-with-Parents

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15.8% of Young People Still Out of Work in January

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15.8% of Young People Still Out of Work in January

Washington, DC – (2/7/14) – Generation Opportunity, a national, non-partisan youth advocacy organization, is announcing its Millennial Jobs Report for January 2014. The data is non-seasonally adjusted (NSA) and is specific to 18-29 year olds:

The effective (U-6) unemployment rate for 18-29 year olds, which adjusts for labor force participation by including those who have given up looking for work, is 15.8 percent (NSA). The (U-3) unemployment rate for 18-29 year olds is 11.3 percent (NSA).

The declining labor force participation rate has created an additional 1.922 million young adults that are not counted as “unemployed” by the U.S. Department of Labor because they are not in the labor force, meaning that those young people have given up looking for work due to the lack of jobs.

The effective (U-6) unemployment rate for 18-29 year old African-Americans is 23.9 percent (NSA); the (U-3) unemployment rate is 20.1 percent (NSA).

The effective (U-6) unemployment rate for 18-29 year old Hispanics is 16.7 percent (NSA); the (U-3) unemployment rate is 12.2 percent (NSA).

The effective (U-6) unemployment rate for 18-29 year old women is 13.5 percent (NSA); the (U-3) unemployment rate is 9.9 percent (NSA).

Evan Feinberg, President of Generation Opportunity, issued the following statement:

“Young Americans can thank Obamacare for such a bleak jobs picture. The Congressional Budget Office wasn’t lying when it reported Obamacare will reduce the American workforce by an additional 2 million jobs over the next three years.

“15.8% of us are still out of work and we have almost nothing to show for it – fewer people have health insurance now than in 2009.”