11,472,000 Americans Have Left Workforce Since Obama Took Office

11.4 million Americans age 16 and over have left the workforce since President Obama took office in January 2009, according to data released today from the Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS).

In July 2014, there were 92,001,000 Americans, 16 and over, who were classified as “not in the labor force,” meaning they not only did not have a job, but they didn’t actively seek one in the last four weeks.

This number has increased by 11,472,000 since January 2009, when the number of Americans not in the labor force was 80,529,000.

The number of Americans not in the labor force dropped slightly in July, down 119,000 from the 92,120,000 Americans not in the labor force in June.

The participation rate, which measures the percentage of the civilian non-institutional population that participated in the labor force by either having a job or actively seeking one, increased from 62.8 percent in June to 62.9 percent in July.

In July, the number of unemployed Americans increased by 197,000 (from 9,474,000 in June to 9,671,000 in July), meaning they did not have a job even though they were actively seeking one.

hile the number of unemployed increased in July, so did the number of employed Americans: In June, there were 146,221,000 employed Americans, and that number climbed to 146,352,000 in July, a one-month increase of 131,000.

The unemployment rate increased from 6.1 percent in June to 6.2 percent in July.

>>Just asking - does the figure include retirees, or only people of working age, e.g., under 65?<<

Yes, it includes not only retirees, but high school students who are 16 or older, as well as college kids. The only group it excludes in the denominator is the institutionalized population, that being those in nursing homes primarily.

That said, the number was 66% before the 2009 recession, so about 3% of approximately 240 million people, or about 7 million people, have dropped out of the labor force who could still be working. The advancing age of the baby boomers probably accounts for the rest of the 11+ million increase in those no longer working.

And if you add that 7 million to the 9 million or so who can’t find jobs but are still looking, you’d get about an 11% unemployment rate.

Whether they dropped out because they gave up looking, or because they managed to get on disability, or because Obama gave them so many benefits they couldn’t resist, is not sorted out by these numbers, however.

Anyway, the 92 million figure is more or less a crock of bull that’s been pushed by conservatives who are ignorant of the definitions employed in developing the statistics. It sounds distressing, but it’s very misleading and we should quit using it as it’s so easily rebutted. If we concentrated on the answer to your question instead, as I did above, we’d have a better argument because the true unemployment rate is above 10% in this country compared to when Bush was president.

Some of us have been out of work over a year because of this disasterous economy. I do not collect welfare or watch the boob tube during the day - I am sending out resumes and going on job interviews and I have a contract for a book so the rest of the time I’m on the computer. No one, but no one, is hiring anyone over 55. We have run through our savings and are on the point of losing our home. This, after 40 years of being in the work force. This is not funny, this is not laziness, it is sheer disaster for this country.

Sorry to hear about that.

My husband went through that when we returned from the middle east after being away for five years.

He had an average boxful (from a grocery store) of rejection notices because he sent out hundreds of resumes.

He used to say that when he went in for an interview he could SEE the look of disappointment on the faces of those 20-30 somethings who didn't want to see ANY gray hair. Their faces VISIBLY fell when they saw his partial gray hair and lined face. He was 46 years old. He DID keep his same hairline all his life, but the hair did get gray.
My husband DID dye his white eyebrows back to his normal medium brown color. THAT was the only reason he even got interviews.

It was a horrible time of our lives. We got over it but there were still "scars," that is, the disappointment of a changed country.

It was a horrible time for many Americans.
I had a group of friends who just didn't understand. They were all single women, had their locked-in jobs and simply "didn't get it." NO sympathy from them at all.
Now, all are retired.

1. One is 70, alone, and is still obese and hurts everywhere. 100% SLUG.
2. One shacked up with a married man for 44 years and HE's dead and she's alone. The ONLY reason she still has the house is because MY MOTHER convinced her to file a "quick claim" so that she would have SOMETHING besides her retirement when her shack up died. The REAL wife made out like a bandit--retirement, social security, the whole nine yards. She also hurts because she was a SLUG.
3. One finally married an Arab and she is continually shuttling between here and Algeria. Oh whoopee.
I got her into Weight Watchers and she is still un-obese. I AM happy for her.

They were so cocky and unkind about my husband's problem it took me a long time to forgive them. I have forgiven them but they aren't my friends anymore.

BEST of luck to you. Stay close to your family, friends and JESUS.

If it is like Memphis which is the largest town to our area, most jobs are min wage or slightly above. Then we don’t know if they will have bus drivers, cops or firemen, contract dispute going on.

People forget that once you reach 45 it is harder to find an equivalent job with roughly the same salary or health ins. We ran into that when my late husband was downsized. Took him 2 yrs to find a job that was nearly equal to what he had been downsized out of. Oh, there were a few jobs, if you wanted to work for beginner wages, when you had 30 yrs experience in your field. And you had to pay the moving cost. It was a lose, lose situation. A year after he did land a job, he died of a massive heart attack.

DEPORTING 30 Million ILLEGALS is your answer. I don’t buy the gov’t numbers. All they know is fuzzy math.

Yes we need to get rid of a bunch of the illegals. If they can’t get a job, a driver’s license, put their kids in school or get healthcare they will leave. Its pretty simple and the legislators know this. They just don’t want to do it.

The legislators are pretty much hopeless. When the people do something, as California voters did in approving Proposition 187 some years back, which denied school services to illegal kids, a lone liberal judge appears and strikes down the law. This happened here and the governor did not appeal the decision. Illegal kids are still flooding the California school system.

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