"Obama's Economy: Where Did All The Young Workers Go?"
June 30, 2014
Seems to sink the falling-participation-rate-is-due-to-retiring-Baby-Boomers story.
What isn't so well-known is that a major reason for the decline is that fewer and fewer young people are holding jobs. This exit from the workforce by the young is counter to the conventional wisdom or the Obama administration's official line.
The White House claims the workforce is contracting because more baby boomers are retiring. There's some truth to that. About 10,000 boomers retire every day of the workweek, so that's clearly depressing the labor market. Since 2009, 7 million Americans have reached official retirement age. The problem will get worse in the years to come as nearly 80 million boomers hit age 65.
But that trend tells only part of the story. The chart above shows the real problem: The largest decline in workforce participation has been those under 25.