A very low unemployment rate is misleading due to a record 95.1 million Americans not in the labor force. This number was expected to decrease, but did not.

There were modest increased in the number of people early in the year 2016. In March it hit the highest level in one year at 63%. After that the numbers flatlined for the next few months. In November it dropped all the way down to 62.7%. It is nearing 62.4%, which was hit last October. This was the lowest in 35 years. This has been brought on by an enormous surge of Americans who are no longer in the work force. In November, this number spiked by 446,000 creating the all-time high of 95.1 million Americans not in the labor force. These statistics were provided by ZeroHedge.

Labor Statistics

This caused the US labor force to shrink. It went from 226,000 to 159,486k. It also helped the unemployment rate drop all the way down to 4.6%. This is the lowest unemployment rate since August 2007.

Unemployment Rate

When you combine the number of unemployed workers and people who are not in the labor force, it totals over 102.5 million Americans who are either not employed or just not looking for work. So while the leaders of this country have boasted about very low unemployment rates, there is also a very low number of people going to work on a daily basis. The record 95.1 million Americans not in the labor force is a much more telling statistic than the unemployment rate.