Why have millions of Americans given up looking for work?

The August jobs report sent chills through Wall Street and Washington because of one eye-popping number: 368,000 Americans gave up looking for work. That makes 7 million people not counted as part of the labor force who want a job.

By Patrik Jonsson,?Staff writer / September 8, 2012

Job seekers fill out applications at a construction job fair in New York last month. Employers added just 96,000 jobs in August, the US Labor Department reported Friday.

Seth Wenig/AP

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A day after Democrats finished their convention in Charlotte, ?the hangover? began, quipped GOP nominee Mitt Romney. That would be the US jobs picture, which not only shows few signs of improving, but is starting to look to many economists like a new normal.

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New jobs numbers for August, released by the Bureau of Labor Statistics on Friday, showed that the unemployment rate decreased to 8.1 percent from 8.3 percent, a fact overshadowed by a far more startling number:

The rate didn?t tick down because 96,000 people found work. It ticked down because 368,000 able-bodied American workers stopped looking for work and dropped out of the labor force. That makes 7 million people ?not in the labor force ? who currently want a job,? as the BLS counts them.

RELATED: Unemployment rate: How many Americans are really unemployed?

Seen another way, civilian labor force participation dropped to 63.5 percent, the lowest point since 1981, even as another 13 million Americans ? the officially unemployed ? continue to look for work and be factored into the unemployment rate by the BLS.

?Income growth is zero and employment growth for all intents and purposes is zero,? says Edward Stuart, an economist at Northeastern Illinois University, at Chicago. ?People quit looking for work ? there?s a discouragement factor.?

If there?s discouragement, there?s certainly despair, as well. Only 1 in 5 unemployed workers are getting any kind of unemployment insurance. Having seen benefits run out, millions have flocked to claim disability insurance from the Social Security Administration, in order to get up to $1,300 a month for being too stressed or pained to work. Food stamp participation is at historic levels, all of which is feeding an economic carousel: There?s precious little money for Americans to spend, so therefore no growth, and few jobs.

?Job market improvement could encourage this group to start spending more, but it will take a lot to get them to spend anywhere near what they did in early 2008, before the financial crisis,? Gallup reports.

Nevertheless, the new jobs numbers, Wall Street analysts say, will likely drive the US central bank to act, especially after Fed Chairman Ben Bernanke pointed last week to the weak labor market as a grave problem for the nation.

The problem for central bankers, according to a paper titled ?The US Labor Market: Status quo or a new normal?? is determining whether high unemployment is a structural or cyclical problem?

Source: http://rss.csmonitor.com/~r/feeds/csm/~3/cYiRA7KcT30/Why-have-millions-of-Americans-given-up-looking-for-work

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