Quote:
Originally Posted by thebix
The 94 million unemployed is basically 'fake news', as it includes mostly people that are not expected to be in the real workforce, such as students, retirees, and stay at home parents taking care of children.
As checked by Politfact
http://www.politifact.com/truth-o-me...ress-congress/
"Losing labor
Trump said that 94 million Americans are out of the labor force. That number is gleaned from the Bureau of Labor Statistics, but it's misleading.
The 94 million figure includes any American age 16 and over who isn’t institutionalized and who isn’t either working or actively looking for work. In other words, the figure includes a lot of people who wouldn’t be expected to be working, or who are engaged in other worthy pursuits.
For instance, the figure includes retirees, high school students over 16, undergraduate and graduate students, stay-at-home parents, disabled people, adults who are engaged in full-time education or training, and even trust-fund kids and those wealthy enough to be living off investments. Put it all together and this is not a trivial group of people.
We have previously estimated that only about a quarter of the approximately 90 million people officially listed as being out of the labor force are either out of work, looking for a job, or eager to get back in the job hunt if labor-market conditions were to improve. The other three-quarters have a good reason for being out of the labor force, which means that Trump’s figure is misleadingly high." |
Agreed that 94 million is not right. Here's a better estimate, IMO.
The population is 325 million and Labor Participation Rate is around 63%, 205 million working. The LPR previous to 2008 was around 66% which would have had 215 million working. About 10 million less people are engaged in the workforce than would have been.
The Participation Rate cuts across all segments of the population and incorporates all conditions, like able to work but not for a good reason. Those conditions, while varied, are not usually subject to rapid changes. For example, the number of college students not working for good reason is unlikely to surge enormously over the time period.
The loss in labor participation is likely due to poor/tight economic conditions.
As an aside, also consider that 10,000,000 * $40,000 average salary = $400,000,000,000,000 ($400 billion) in forsaken income. Since salary is only a part of actual economic earnings (the company makes more on your labor than they pay you) and earnings spin off other economic activity (if you work you can afford to buy more thereby paying other people) the economic value lost could easily exceed $1 trillion.
NH population is (1.33 million/325 million US) x 10,000,000 = about 41,000 potential NH workers NOT working.
Now what the NH restaurant proportion and specifically the Lyon's Den allotment of the 41,000 people might be is anyone's guess.
