Chart of the day: Obama recovery - Labor Participation disparity

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In June of 2009, the labor force participation rate was 65.7 percent (by way of comparison, the average over the last decade is 65.1 percent, while the peak was 66.5 percent in June of 2003). Since the end of the recession, that number has nose-dived. At the end of last month, it hit 62.8 percent — on par with what the U.S. experienced in the late 1970's (although at the time, the number was on the upswing).

What does this all mean? Rather than being the sign of a vibrant economy, the falling unemployment rate is actually an arithmetic artifact of the BLS head-counting process. If the labor force participation rate had held steady since 2009, the number of people in the labor force today would total nearly 162 million people. Instead, BLS reports the official number to be just shy of 155 million.

And thanks to how BLS calculates and reports the official unemployment rate, those 7 million people are not included among the ranks of the unemployed. Add them back in and you have an unemployment rate that averages a very stubborn 10.8 percent since the end of the recession.

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