The Real Deflategate

The Fed has intensely debated
When interest-rate hikes should be slated.
Like a team I won't name,
They're playing the game
With balls that are underinflated.

With a mandate to find the right measure
Of balancing jobs versus treasure,
They're Patriots all,
But the Hawks want the ball
To be at the usual pressure.

The rate of the jobholding share
Is less than appears to be there,
As if it were tested
And then one suggested
To secretly let out some air.

In spite of the fear of inflation,
Wages display moderation,
Since it's hard to inflate
With a tumbling rate
Of labor force participation.

Says Yellen: "It starts to annoy,
In discussing the rate of employ,
The analogy calls
For playing with balls;
Is it something the fellows enjoy?"

"It seems to me, based on my role,
The economy's just like the Bowl:
The material might
Be flaccid or tight,
But the point is to get to the goal."

Back To Work

The ranks of the long-unemployed
(A status you'd like to avoid)
Have started to thin
From the slow growth we're in;
Is it reason to be overjoyed?

The jobless in longer-term stages
Are fewer than they've been in ages,
Though many returning
To rolls of the earning
May settle for minimum wages.

There's a glimmer of good news for the long-term unemployed: your chances of finding employment are growing.  The proportion of job-seekers unemployed six months or longer was 39.1% in December, the first time this ratio has fallen under 40% in more than three years, according to the Wall Street Journal.  Although that still leaves 4.8 million long-term jobless, it's a considerable reduction from the peak of 6.5 million in 2010.  But, you say, haven't most long-term unemployment reductions come from discouraged job-seekers dropping out of the labor force?  The answer appears to be: not so much.  The number of jobless who report they've given up looking is estimated at 400,000 over the last year, while the number of Americans with jobs rose by 2.4 million over the same period.

Now for the bad news: wages of returning workers fall by 11% for every year they are out of the workforce, and unemployment benefits no longer last 99 weeks - it's now 73 weeks at most, depending on your state of residency.  Some of the long-term unemployed may have been motivated by their expiring benefits to take lower-paying jobs.  Finally, those poor souls who have gone three or more years without work had no holiday cheer in December, as their numbers have not yet reduced.

Out of the Labor Force

Said an analyst, closely critiquing
The job market trends that are peaking:
"One is struck once again
By the outflow of men
From the ranks of employed or jobseeking."

"This development's long been projected
With retiring boomers expected,
But nothing so strong
Came to push it along
As the 2008 fiscal wreck did."

"Whereas once the laid-off might be prowlin'
For jobs from the ads they'd been scourin',
Many downsized afresh in
The current recession
Are optin' for throwin' the towel in."

Last Friday's non-farm payroll data incited more than the usual discussion for the fact that the unemployment rate declined even as more people were not working. This prompted much discussion (including limericks) of the labor force participation rate, which has declined sharply since 2008. The Atlantic's Derek Thompson anticipated this discussion when he asked earlier in the week: "Why Are So Many Men Dropping Out of The Workforce?" Not only has the LFPR declined in the last few years, but men's participation has been in decline for three generations.

Since the 1950s, men have slowly flowed out of the workforce as women have flowed in. Some of this male outflow stems from an aging workforce headed into retirement. In the Great Recession, older men may look pessimistically at their job prospects and decide, in many cases, that their wives' incomes and their social benefits comprise an acceptable fallback position. Thompson concludes that "the combination of an aging workforce (which we cannot control) and a weak economy (which we can control) has tugged down the participation rate, which in turn has tugged down the unemployment rate -- and threatens to make us poorer in the long term."

Watch That Denominator

A fall in the joblessness rate
Would normally seem to be great,
Excepting, of course,
When there's less labor force,
Deflating the weight of that rate.

When the August unemployment rate was announced on Friday, its decline from 8.3% from 8.1% may have seemed like good news. In reality, the employment data were disappointing, because the number of nonworking people has actually increased. The growth in non-farm payroll employment of 96,000 fell short of the 125,000 consensus forecast; neither did it meet the rate needed to accommodate new entrants into the job market.

However, not all nonworking people count as "unemployed" because the federal statistics only tally those who are working or actively seeking work. This is the definition of the labor force, which is divided into the number of unemployed job-seekers to give the unemployment rate. When the jobless become discouraged and stop looking for work, they are no longer considered "unemployed" or part of the labor force. Thus, they decrease both the numerator and the denominator of the unemployment rate by the same number, which lowers the rate. It is therefore also important to monitor the labor force participation rate, i.e., the labor force divided by the working-age population.

As shown in the graph, the labor force participation rate remained fairly constant at around 66% during the Bush years, until the onset of the financial crisis in the fall of 2008.  At that point, labor participation began a decline that has continued in the Obama years.  It now stands at 63.5%. A true recovery will have to bring those lost participants back into the labor force.