Boomers Turn On, Tune In, Drop Out of U.S. Labor Force

[KoKo]

Boomers Turn On, Tune In, Drop Out of U.S. Labor Force

When Robin McLane’s generation hit public schools in the 1950s, there were never enough classrooms or teachers to accommodate the bulge, she said. So she’s not surprised about the latest shock that boomers are delivering to the U.S. economy.

“People all around me, relatives and friends, are either retiring, or they’re finding it’s very difficult to find work anywhere from 55 on,” said the 65-year-old, who lives in Portsmouth, New Hampshire, and retired from her job as a high school literacy specialist in June. “For me, I was ready to move on.”

The share of Americans in the labor force, known as the participation rate, is hovering around an almost four-decade low as the population ages and discouraged job seekers give up looking for work. Federal Reserve research shows retirees are at the forefront of the recent exodus, which blunts the impact of policy aimed at boosting the economy and workforce.

In the two years ended 2013, 80 percent of the decrease in labor force participation was due to retirement, according to calculations by Shigeru Fujita, a senior economist at the Federal Reserve Bank of Philadelphia. And while the number of discouraged workers rose sharply during and after the recession, the group’s ranks have been roughly unchanged since 2011.

That tilts the debate on whether the participation rate can fully rebound alongside the improving economy, as retired workers are unlikely to re-enter the workforce, said Michelle Girard, chief U.S. economist at RBS Securities Inc., in Stamford, Connecticut. A tighter supply of workers means wage pressures would build faster than otherwise, something Fed Chairman Janet Yellen may watch as a leading indicator of inflation, Girard said.

Dropping Out

CONTINUED AT:

http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2014-02-10/boomers-turn-on-tune-in-drop-out-of-u-s-labor-force.html

[badtoworse]

1. Not this boomer - I like what I do and I'm good at it

[Ron Green]

2. Time for the New Economy.

The smartest thing governments can now do is to support cooperatives and worker-directed enterprises. The "labor market" needs to go away, and human-scale economies need to flourish.

[Dirty Socialist]

3. I Can't Get IN to The Work Force

Sux 2B me

[eridani]

6. That's why I took early retirement

To give younger workers a shot at my job. Sad to hear that even with increased retirement, employment still sucks for Millenials. We need to rethink work, as other posters in this thread have suggested.

[NYC_SKP]

4. Knock on wood, I think I'm a survivor cuz I never settled.

I never bought into the 30 year watch shit, I could never have done it.

They say kids today will see ten or more career changes in their career lifetimes.

That's me, I was that beginning in the 1970s.

What kept people in one career, largely, were benefits-- pensions and health care. My parents HATED IT!

Guess what, KoKo (and other readers)...

The RW KILLED pensions, (stole them) and the royally fucked up heath care.

Surprise, surprise, surprise... ACA now makes healthcare portable.

Next stop (lets go Obama) Social Security expansion.

Everybody gets a pension.

Am I right?

[KoKo]

11. Yes..they did. We were lucky to get a small one cut off when forced to 401-K

but we are close to you in time frame for when we both got out into the job force in "real time."

And...it would be good if we could re-institute pensions. But...Big Business is not going to give it back when they worked so hard to get rid of it.

It would have to be better than MyRA which Obama has just proposed. That doesn't go far enough. Sounds like another IRA/Roth which is subject to another crash at some point...just when you need to retire...or get downsized from job and need to draw out of the fund for kids expenses or other emergencies.

Dont' know...but, I'd probably raise the Cap in the Social Security Pay In for the 1% and allow wealthy people to put more money into system ...along with raising the employer's pay in to allow people to retire at 55. The workforce demand is shrinking and we have lots of people who will have no jobs when they get to their 50's. (at least that's what the folks who say ROBOTS are taking over think).

[NYC_SKP]

15. IRAs and MyRAs turned out to be semi-privatization schemes.

You and I both know that.

It was/is a junior version of fully privatized social security.

"We'll give you tax breaks for investing your money in private markets, no guarantees."

Like Health Savings Accounts, it is NOT what FDR and the American people had in mind.

Raise the cap, that's a no-brainer.

Raise the cap and cut defense in half and roll back the 1986 Tax Codes and we'll all be rolling in dough and security and single payer and a secure retirement.

Fuck, it's so easy.

[ohheckyeah]

5. The boomers I know were forced out...

and there is no avenue back in. Try to find a job after age 55 and in some cases even age 50.

[Vattel]

7. My boomer relative finally got back into the work force.

He went from high paid executive to postal carrier, but at least he has a job again.

[KoKo]

14. We had to do consulting...finding partners eventually to kick in....

It's not been easy...and it is getting really harder. We are Medical/Technology. The Pharma Companies are just buying back their stock and not creating new businesses. Just sending out their off patent drugs to China and India to bring back here for high prices to our Medical System for us to pay higher prices for their questionable quality Generics and because of the mess up in Health Care Costs...trying to get new products in Medical Device improvements is hard to get through the FDA...right now.

We were lucky to catch the dot com boom..after we got downsized where there was Venture Capital Money and Biotech was Booming. But...it's been rough going since then.

[Pretzel_Warrior]

8. that's actually a good thing for people like me in the Gen-x group

there will be a slight shortage of workers in the skilled management sector until millennial boomlet starts to have higher workforce participation and experience.

[Curmudgeoness]

9. What kind of bullshit is this????

IF it were true that boomers are destroying the economy by retiring and getting out of the workforce, I would think that this would mean that there are plenty of jobs for the young people who are unable to find work. IF companies were in need of employees, they would be hiring.

Sounds like another reason to blame boomers for the sins of the "job creators". Par for the course.

[femmocrat]

10. I agree, Curmudgeoness.

Not so long ago, we were being attacked on DU for NOT getting the hell out of the way to make room for the young'uns who were in need of jobs.

Everything is our fault! Pardon us for being born!

[Curmudgeoness]

23. I have not missed that.

Although I am not trying to start another generational war, since we really are all in this together. I was just making a statement.

[femmocrat]

25. Oh, I'm sorry... didn't mean to imply that.

I got a little carried away! LOL

As someone who was caught in the trap of not being able to retire because of health care, I am happy that people are seeing more options now.

[Warren Stupidity]

12. Reading between the line, the real upset

is that a decreased participation rate will put upward pressure on wages.

[Curmudgeoness]

21. That is always true, if the original premise is a fact.

I don't think it is true that there will be less hours worked. It may be true that the hours will be filled by more people, and that would be a good thing. People feel better when they have a job, even if it is not the ideal job.

But do you think that if wages increase because there are less available people to hire that companies would stop hiring? That isn't going to happen, but I think it will take a long time for an upward pressure on wages....there are just too many desperate people out there right now.

[TheMastersNemesis]

17. The Problem Has Been Workers Being Anti Union & Anti Labor For So Long.

No one ever fought back as the "social contract" was being dismantled by the supposed "job creators". Employers take no responsibility for anything now. Workers have to pay for their own training and are on their own. Unless you come as a perfect job candidate you do not get hired. Some employers have such a large litany of job requirement and experience that almost no work has all the qualifications for a lot of jobs.

Experience inflation has been combined with falling reimbursement. Now so many workers are almost begging for jobs that pay a pittance. Workers just seemed to accept higher production with less pay and did not demand fair wages. And so many workers bought the bull about unions being corrupt that they allowed their masters to have all the control. So unions have declined and so have wages, benefits, job security, social contract et al.

Now workers are at the mercy of a brutal market. And the 18-32 crowd are suffering for it. Now there is no job security. And the multiple career mantra is lying bullshit. Employment continuity with income continuity over a long period of time is how one achieves economic wealth over time. The present situation is crap.

[Curmudgeoness]

22. Yes, I was amazed to see a graph

of wages vs. union participation. As the percent of workers who belonged to a union decreased, wages also decreased. And that is all wages, union and non-union. Unions have kept wages higher for all employees. Not so much these days, but it is so hard to convince some people. Not that unions are not to blame for some of their problems though. They became corrupt at one point and lost a lot of support. But the biggest mistake, IMO, was when Reagan fired all the union air traffic controllers who went on strike, and there was no one other union in this country that supported them. They should have shut the country down to show support and solidarity, and to show their muscle. I was waiting for it and all I got was crickets.

[meow2u3]

13. Boomers didn't DROP out of the work force

They were RUN out of the work force. Employers unjustly treat boomers as unemployable, getting away with rampant age discrimination under the pretext that they demand too high a paycheck.

[Alkene]

16. At the moment, I'd settle for any paycheck. n/t

[Jesus Malverde]

18. This is not a phenomena limited to the boomers..

The millennial are famous for still living with their parents.

We are undergoing a super fast restructuring of the economy where jobs are not needed any more. Eventually there will be a million truckers out of work as the roads become driverless. These changes are real and unstoppable. Technology is moving faster than our politicians can keep up and globalization is fuel for the fire.

Geolocation, 3d printing, robotics, mobile apps, the internet, and globalization changing lives forever in what in retrospect will be called a revolution like we talk about the bronze age, or the industrial age.

What to do with all these people... because natural economic growth does not and will not have a role for them.

The stock market is at record levels, that should tell us something.

[KoKo]

19. What happens when the only work left is Robot, Computer/Tech Assembly

Where we are on par with Chinese or other Laborers for substandard pay? How will we have enough jobs? And, what if the Robots do all the work manufacturing themselves and replace the folks who put computers together and do packing and shipping.

Imagine Amazon's Packing and Shipping being done by Robots and the Products being delivered to customers by "Drones." (Jeff Bezo's thinks drone delivery is good)

Who will have the money to buy these products when we can't work for a decent living?

Drones and Robots don't need to eat ....so Fast Food Workers will be out of work and even repair work could be done with your friendly Robot Repair Person driving in Google Car (programed) to your house and hooking in to your home Computer Driven Appliances and fixing them with an I-Pad adjustment.

It's a weird future that doesn't seem fit for humans anymore.

[NBachers]

20. I dont see any robot plumbers in the future

[KoKo]

24. I would hope...since I'm having to have the "BLUE PIPE" replaced in

our whole house and after having to put a new Roof ...we are stretched with Double Whammy!

But...hey...Sometimes Life just Sucks......

But..interesting. If a Robot showed up at my door to get under my sink or try to deal with a toilet problem....I'd get my broom and whack it outta the door...

After all...Robots have no human feelings...for now...at least. It wouldn't be seen as cruelty... At least not now. At some point maybe my grandchildren might welcome "Mr. Robot." I will be glad to have "passed on" by that point.