Are the USA’s Adult Population and Workforce Shrinking? If So, Why?
Following up on this post relating to the Employment Situation Report issued earlier today —
Since the business press either doesn’t see it, or doesn’t think it’s as important as the next “Economy in Crisis” story, I guess it’s left to me to present these two charts that were just updated by Uncle Sam’s Bureau of Labor Statistics today, and to discuss their possible significance (go to this link to select the tables you see below, specifically “Civilian noninstitutional population” and “Civilian labor force” [not seasonally adjusted]):
The red-boxed areas point to the following:
- In the first table, the not-seasonally adjusted size of our workforce (i.e., the raw numbers) shrank by 2,368,000 from July 2007 to February 2008. Though a few are in the 1.5 - 1.6 million range, no other July-February period in the past 10 years comes even close to the current number.
- In the second table, the total adult population has barely budged in four months (up 94,000), and has gone down 347,000 since December. Again, no other analogous periods in the past nine years come close to these (2003-2004’s four-month increase of 318,000 and two-month loss of 152,000 are the closest).
Where have these people gone? Although the stat mavens may tell us that there’s imprecision in the numbers, these BLS tables raise these questions:
- Is net out-migration really occurring?
- Are those here illegally are going further “underground” and escaping detection (they are supposed to be part of BLS’s Household Survey)?
- Or is it a combination of both?
Well if it isn’t illegals going back to their own country, then it’s either a whole lot more people are dying lately or 16 years ago there was a change in breeding patterns.
Comment by dscott — March 7, 2008 @ 3:06 pm
The third choice would be lots of people are retiring (any place where we can check this?), if so this was indirectly predicted with SS Trust fund going negative in 2017, less than 9 years away (8 yrs, 9 mos). Tick, tick, tick, tick…
Comment by dscott — March 7, 2008 @ 3:11 pm
#2, That point could explain the first table, but not the second. I don’t recall a birth dearth in 1992.
I suppose it could be a lot more people than usual deciding to go back to school, or staying in school longer, which the seemingly bottomless federal loan/grant system seems to encourage. But the numbers change to support that would have to be demographically almost impossible.
Comment by TBlumer — March 7, 2008 @ 3:23 pm
Neat site found: http://www.census.gov/prod/2007pubs/08statab/pop.pdf
Table 4 indicates the birth and death rates are fairly stable at around 2 to 1 ratio.
Table 7 population by age.
The under 55 groups look to be fairly similar in size distribution, so there is no hope of having the numbers on SS drop for any reason but in the next 10 years that rate of increase will stop to hold a steady state number. So between births, deaths and retirements, there is no explanation for the decline in the workforce numbers other than illegals going home.
As a side note-
If we roughly assume everyone that can will retire at 65 for the sake of argument the we should expect to see more new SS retirees add up something like this:
2007 to 2011 (60-64)- 13,362,000
2012 to 2016 (55-59)- 18,224,000
Total 31,586,000 will retire by 2017
assuming none of these people die or decide to keep working.
as opposed to 18,917,000 who are 65 to 74 and 13,047,000 who are 75 to 84
and 5,297,000 who are 85 and over
total 37,261,000 who are presumably on SS now.
By the time 2017 rolls around we can assume most of the 85 and over crowd will be dead but most of the 65 to 84 lives, that would mean a doubling of retirees drawing SS benefits, 63,550,000 approx and this why SS is in big trouble. The politicians embezzled the trust fund money and spent it on social programs instead of investing the money like any pension fund would do. That’s why 2017 brings an end to the social program vote buying.
Comment by dscott — March 7, 2008 @ 3:49 pm
#4, I don’t see a better explanation, except that a couple more months of data are needed to validate. I suspect the total civilian adult population is a softish number, while the workforce number is probably pretty good.
Also, life expectancy at 65, last time I checked is 16 for men and 20 for women. So, assuming incremental health improvements, only about half will make it to 85, but the numbers still don’t work.
The social program vote buying is having to end much sooner, as we’re going from a $200 billion-plus surplus in SocSec, which is just being spent, to a zero surplus in 2017. Since they’re used to living on the higher surplus level, there’s no slack, and Congress will, on average, have to find $20 bil more every year — starting essentially RIGHT NOW — from somewhere else (first $20, then $40, then $60, etc.) or cut spending to keep things from getting totally out of hand.
Comment by TBlumer — March 7, 2008 @ 4:03 pm
Rationally speaking, social program spending and that’s a big if right there, (if the Dems caved on illegal alien issue and went with the flow) would drop rapidly as the unemployment rate dropped since 7.4 million plus others on the dole who would see the incentive to work due to rising wages. My take on this is the situation is not hopeless with SS IF, IF, we could just cut out the $565 billion we spend annually on social programs. http://conservablogs.com/publiusforum/2008/03/01/taxation-without-representation/ yeah, I know it’s a pipe dream, but illegals really do cost us a lot of money and they need to go. McCain needs to get real on the deportation issue, they all must be deported every last 12 or 20 million of them. Whether ICE agents have to drag them kicking and screaming to the border or all the employers refuse to hire them because the incentive to do so draconian. It’s not fair to dump $565 billion a year on the backs of the taxpayer never mind the next generation inheriting the national debt.
As far as I am concerned, the illegal alien issue has given us a unique opportunity to finally rid ourselves of the social programs by forcing the Dems to make a choice between seniors and those on the dole. If we can craft the message of one or the other, the American People will choose the senior over the others. You can’t look your aging mom and dad in the face and say sorry, fend for yourself when younger people have the physical and mental ability to do so.
Comment by dscott — March 7, 2008 @ 4:28 pm
The more I think about this I just realized something. You mentioned increasing GDP/capita as a consequence. Is it equally possible that when the self deportation began in July 2007 as your figures noted, that GDP growth rate dropped as a direct result of their departure??? I can see the libs making this agrument. Or should we say that increasing oil prices and the credit market lock up causing the construction industry to come to a halt was the real source of GDP growth leveling off and the increasing enforcement of work laws forcing out the illegals has protected the average person from seeing a decrease????
Comment by dscott — March 7, 2008 @ 5:02 pm
#6, I agree there would be huge benefits to the departure in terms of reduced social-program spending.
The choice you’re speaking of is between “the children” in the abstract and seniors. The answer is they won’t want to make a choice. The problem is that the deficits of the 1980s and 2000s created an environment where big deficits are considered acceptable. I’m not as optimistic as you are about things, esp as the boomer bubble moves into seniorhood it will make demands that aren’t reasonable.
#7, I think you’re onto something… unfortunately, traditional per-capita GDP is based on total population, not adults. Plus IMO the Census Bureau won’t pick up an out-migration trend until the actual 2010 census, at which time it will be politicized and turned into “we can’t find people who are there” instead of recognized. BUT… It will be REAL interesting to watch the BLS workforce and total adult numbers in the coming months and couple of years, because it may act as a denier of that argument about the Census.
Comment by TBlumer — March 7, 2008 @ 6:41 pm