Obamanomics: Young give up and drop out of workforce while seniors forced to seek jobs

This is totally upside down.

Via WaPo:

There’s been a lot of ink (or, I guess, pixels) spilled on the decline in the labor force. But the aggregate drop masks some interesting differences behind groups. Namely, the labor force participation rate among young people aged 16 to 24 has plummeted much faster than that of other age groups, even as the participation rate among the oldest Americans has risen to record levels.

Labor force participation has been slowly declining for decades, in part because more young people are pursuing higher education. But there’s been a particularly sharp drop-off during the recession, as young workers have generally fared worse in the labor market than others: In 2011, their unemployment rate was 17.3 percent, while those aged 25 to 54 had an unemployment rate of 7.9 percent. And those who’ve stopped looking for work reported that they’ve done so because “that they were not able to find work, followed by the belief that no work was available,” according to the Congressional Research Service: Read more...

Via WaPo: