The average annual labor force participation rate hit a 35-year-low of 63.2 percent in the United States in 2013, according to data from the
Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS). The last time the average annual labor force participation rate was
that low was in in 1978, when it was also 63.2 percent. Jimmy Carter was
president then.
What is often forgotten in the reporting of the economic statistics is that the statistics are merely an approximation of the economic situation; they are the map and not the territory. GDP doesn’t actually exist, and the “growth” that it represents was designed as a way to provide planners a means of determining how best to intervene in the economy. The decline in the labor force participation rate gives the lie to both the false GDP and false U3 unemployment statistics, both of which are heavily manipulated in a misguided attempt to provide a falsely positive perspective.
The contractionary effect of the increasing lack of participation in the labor force is compounded by the fact that the doubling of the female labor force means that many of the younger women now in it are considerably less productive than the older men they have replaced. Throw in the subsequent consequence of delayed marriage and fewer children, and it is readily apparent that the US economy cannot recover in the next 20 years.