Re: Payroll employment rises by 252,000 in December; unemployment rate declines to 5.
I not certain what the living arrangements of seniors has to do with anything, unless you wrongly believe that living in an assisted living qualifies as being in an institution. An assisted living is a residential option, not an institution.
Perhaps "assisted living" was not the best choice of phrases, as it seems that that covers a variety of arrangements.
Technical Paper 66 states: "The institutional population refers to a population universe consisting of inmates or residents of CPS-defined institutions, such as prisons, nursing homes, juvenile detention facilities, or residential mental hospitals." I was assuming, perhaps mistakenly, that at least some assisted living facilities and retirement homes would also fall into that definition because of their lack of free participation in the labor force. But regardless of specific facilities, it remains that many social security receipients are not in the population, and at the same time, some who are receipients do (limited) work, so it's better to go off of
Table A-6. Employment status of the civilian population by sex, age, and disability status, not seasonally adjusted and other specific categories to determine the not in the labor force breakdown.
So your BLS table refutes 7.8M of the 22M students, suggesting that 7.8M are indeed in the work force, but the other 14.2M are not. So, other than taking issue with 7.8M of my 90M number, you really haven't offered much in the way of refinement of the composition of Not in Labor Force.
My point was that using sources other than the CPS for Not in the Labor Force breakdown will be inaccurate as they are different samples of different statistical universes with different definitions. You looked at full time students assuming none were in the labor force, while the tables I showed were all enrolled with many in the labor force. Sure, what you posted was close enough to make the overall point, but I feel it's better to use more accurate and specific data, if available.
Until you have a better set of numbers, it stands. So, we still have more than 90% of NILF explained by something the reflects positively on the economy: that is the people can afford to retire, be stay at home moms or go to school without having to work.
I wasn't trying to refute that overall point, and there are plenty of other categories as well. About 93% of those Not in the Labor Force do not want to work and of those who say they do, most are only hypothetical in that they haven't done anything about work in the last year, or are not available for work.
One of the biggest components of NILF are persons that are entrepreneurs / free lance consultants. I, for one, am not in the labor force as I have no job. I do own a business that employs 80 persons, who are in the labor force. Though I have my moments of discouragement in owning a business, I am not considered a worker, unemployed or discouraged worker.
If you receive any profits from a business (or would receive profits if the business was profitable) then you are considered employed regardless of how many hours you worked unless the ownership is no more than an investment. Those are the first questions on the survey...establishing business or farm ownership. From
the Interviewer's Manual: "If a person receives part of the profits from the business/farm, or would have received part of the profits if the
business/farm had not operated at a loss, consider him/her to be working. This is regardless of the number of hours worked during the reference week unless (s)he owns the business for investment purposes only. The part of the profit received can be in cash or pay "in kind.""
Even just buying and selling on Ebay is considered a business if you're buying things specifically for resale and intend to make a profit.
