October 01, 2015
October 2, 2015
The household survey shows a weak picture of the labor market. While the unemployment rate was unchanged there was a drop of 0.2 percentage points in both the labor force participation rate and the employment to population ratio. The low EPOP is not primarily a demographic story. The EPOP for prime-age (25–54) men is still 3.5 percentage points below its pre-recession peak and 5.0 percentage points below its 2000 high. For prime-age women the September EPOP is 2.7 percentage points below the pre-recession peak and 4.7 percentage points below the high hit in 2000. Clearly this is not a story of people leaving the labor force to retire.
