FAIRFAX, Va.—Americans for Limited Government President Rick Manning issued the following statement on the latest jobs numbers:
“Since 1997, the labor force participation rate for 16-64 year olds, that is, excluding seniors, has declined from 77.4 percent to 73.2 percent, accounting for 8.7 million working age adults who have either left the labor force or not entered on a net basis. These are Americans in their prime working years but are simply not participating, and when some of them do try to participate, the unemployment rate increases, as it did today. If they were included into today’s jobs report in full as unemployed, the unemployment rate would be about 9.8 percent, not 5 percent as reported.”
