Wednesday evening links - AEI You can't see it here but you can in the Civilian Labor Force Participation Rate chart below. As Professor Perry notes, the male LFPR is in constant decline from 1948 through the present. But the female is opposite, rising dramatically over the same period. I expect that if I had data going back to 1948 for coloreds it would mirror women to some significant extent, although they are a much smaller cohort in the total population. The data 1980 forward is similar, showing these groups growing in importance in the workforce. http://www.bls.gov/mlr/1999/12/art1full.pdf From 1948 through about 1970 the LFPR remains between 58% and 60%, but by 1970 something happens, the LFPR begins rising, and continues to rise until it peaks a bit over 67% in 2000. That something was the massive movement of women, and coloreds into the workforce as the US society opened to women, and coloreds in the workforce. It appears from all accounts that this massive influx was driven by societal desires more than business need. This resulted in a flattening of the rise in wages. At the same time technological advancements began to make price product price deflation more common. The result is that wages rose slower after 1970, while prices became sticky. While we became wealthier, much of that wealth increase came through buying power of the dollar, and less through direct wage increases. The left loves to claim that wages have been stagnant, and if prices had continued as they have in the past this would indeed be a serious problem, but they did not. Food is getting cheaper, and has been for a very long time How your iPhone replaces $3000 of tech stuff from the 1990s - AEI At least, and likely more since many of the things in incorporates were unavailable in the past at any price. It is difficult to believe that all of the men in the labor force in 1950 were high quality workers, the LFPR for men was 85%, and from experience the percentage of men who are good, high quality workers is a number significantly lower than 85%.
It appears that what his happening is these lower qualified, lower quality workers are being wrung from the labor force, and replaced by women, and coloreds who are higher quality workers. It also appears that since the 2000 Americans have had a come to Jesus about whether having more than 67% of the population 16-64 in the labor force is a good idea. It would appear that in light of the current 5% unemployment rate that, the answer to that question would be, an emphatic - no! I have no idea what the correct LFPR is for the US, but I suspect that over the next decade we will find out. I am confident that we will not see a +67% LFPR.
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