This week, the issue of labor-force participation became a hot topic in Washington. …
The workforce-participation declines predate Barack Obama’s presidency, but they have accelerated on his watch. Since Mr. Obama took office in 2009, the labor force participation rate, a measure of the people 16-or-older looking for work or holding a job, has declined by somewhere around 1.5 to 2 percentage points, depending on the month you choose.
The story looks very different at the local level, however. Some counties have seen big drops in their workforce-participation numbers in that time; some have seen less change; and some have even seen increases. When you examine those county numbers with different political and socio-economic filters, some clear patterns emerge. CONT.
Dante Chinni, Wall Street Journal