Are Retiring Baby Boomers Causing the Labor Force Participation Rate to Drop?

There have been plausible suggestions that a part of the reason for the drop in the labor force participation rate is because the leading edge of the Baby Boomer generation has reached retirement age.  This is an important issue for many reasons, but one of special significance is how much of the drop in the labor participation rate in this never-ending recession is due to discouraged unemployed people no longer looking for employment versus a large number of Baby Boomer retirees.  Let us examine the civilian labor force participation rates provided by the Bureau of Labor Statistics for both young and seasoned workers by age group:

The civilian labor force participation rates for three age groups of young people is shown from 2002 to 2011 for comparison with that for three age groups of seasoned people.  That for the entire civilian labor force 16 years old and up is also shown.  The entire labor force shows a small decrease in its civilian labor participation rate since 2008.

The leading edge of the Baby Boomers is the lower age portion within the 65 – 69 age group, those 65 and 66.  The labor force participation rate for this group has actually been steadily increasing since 2002!  That for the age group 60 – 64 has also generally increased, though it dropped slightly in 2011.  The age group 55 – 59 has been very slightly higher in participation from 2008 through 2011. If the retirements of Baby Boomers are the cause of the falling civilian labor force participation rates, it is not apparent from the participation rates of the seasoned workers most likely to be retiring.

Examining the youngest 16 – 19 year old worker group, we find a sharp fall in the participation rate since 2006.  The labor force participation rate for the 20 – 24 age group has fallen slightly since 2008, while the 25 – 29 age group rate has fallen less since then.  Note that the disastrous fall in the labor force participation rate for the 16 – 19 year old workers began before the Great Socialist Recession began in 2008.  The federal minimum wage went up from $5.15 to $5.85 on 24 July 2007, so many companies would have hired few starting workers in this age group even earlier that year in anticipation of this increase in their labor costs.

It appears likely that the lower overall labor participation rate is thus due to younger workers rather than older workers and that much of that may be due to the federal minimum wage increases in July of 2007, 2008, and 2009.  However, it is still possible that some of the decrease in the labor participation rate is still due to retiring seasoned workers if the per year numbers of Baby Boomers on the leading edge of that generation are in larger numbers than are the young workers entering the labor pipeline.  Let us look at the numbers in the population of each group in 2011:

16 – 19 year olds:  16,774,000, a 4-year group with a 5-year group equivalent of 20,967,500

20 – 24 year olds:  21,423,000

25 – 29 year olds:  21,119,000

55 – 59 year olds:  19,670,000

60 – 64 year olds:  17,317,000

65 – 69 year olds:  12,546,000

There are fewer people in the three older age groups per year than there are in the three young age groups.  In particular, there are fewer people of any age from 55 to 66, which are Baby Boomer years, than there are in the 16, 17, 18, or up to 29 years old individual years.  So, while the bulge of Baby Boomers is significant in terms of health care costs and Social Security costs, it is not the cause even in part of the drop in the overall population labor participation rate.  There are more potential workers entering the employment pipeline than are exiting it.  Unfortunately, those who may wish to enter the pipeline are not being hired.

As I pointed out, a part of the reason is the minimum wage law, which is not always the federal law.  Many states have higher minimum wage rates than the federal rate.  18 states have a higher minimum wage than the federal minimum wage.  These minimum wage mandates greatly discourage employers from hiring many young and inexperienced workers who will need extensive on-the-job training, especially when the worker is under-educated or shows evidence of possible work ethic problems.

Still another important reason for not hiring young workers since 2008 is the knowledge that employers will have to provide expensive health care insurance to young workers as ObamaCare kicks in.  In the past, many young workers were not covered by company health insurance, which gave them an opportunity in their generally healthy youthful years to gain enough skills that an employer would later provide them with health insurance coverage.  Now the expense looms before the knowledge and skill set of the young worker has matured enough to prove his value.

Finally, it costs money, which has to be viewed as an investment, to train a new worker, especially if the worker is young and inexperienced.  Most of the young people hired are hired by small companies.  These small companies often have cash flow problems even in good times and can be especially vulnerable when they have used many of their limited financial resources to weather an extraordinarily long and deep recession of four years duration that looks likely to stretch into a fifth year.

No business cycle recession lasts so long.  Only government knows how to so mangle the economy that our great private sector enterprises cannot recover strongly in much less time.  Much as was the case in the Great Depression, government has pursued very wrongheaded socialist visions which have discouraged business investors, whether they be investors in equipment or in newly hired human capital.

How ironic and tragic that young Americans who were so often enthusiastic about the election of Barack Obama in 2008 have now found themselves and their slightly younger brothers and sisters suffering dire delays in establishing their careers.  Many have lost out on gaining years of job skills and experience.  Obama has betrayed their faith in him on a colossal scale.  Though in truth even young people should have known better than to have embraced his socialism despite the government-run school indoctrination programs in favor of socialism and big government generally.

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