US economy gathering steam. Part II

[Almighty Colin]

Dravyk,

Conspiracy theories aside, all the data you want is readily available from the Department of Labor. This is the straight dope. On a straight numbers basis, there are more people working in the US today than at any other times in its history. In January, 2004 there were 138.6 million people in the US employed. There were 133.4 million people working in 1999. There are 5 million MORE people employed today than there were 4 years ago. Look up the numbers. There has been a net GAIN in jobs.

Now nothing happens in a vacuum and some of that is because the population increased so it always make sense to compare the number employed to the total adult population (16+) so you have a ratio instead of a straight number. If you do, you'll see that the ratio of employed people to adults in the US is 62.4%. In 1999 it was higher at 64.3%. So in that sense we have less employed as a percentage of adults - which we would already suspect since the late 1990s were record-setting in that regard.

In general though it has risen over time. Before the mid-1980s we never saw it over 60%. It rose as more women entered the workforce and there were more opportunities for minorites. It has not been under 60% since.