Investing.com - The final jobs report of the Obama era, released today, illustrates that the number of Americans not in the labor force has increased by 14,573,000, 18.09%, since January 2009, when Barack Obama became president of the U.S.
In December, according to the Labor Department’s Bureau of Labor Statistics, a record 95,102,000 Americans were not in the labor force, or 47,000 more than in November, and the labor force participation rate was 62.7%, a tenth of a point higher than in November.
The participation rate dropped to a 38-year low of 62.4% on Obama's watch, in September 2015. It was only 3-tenths of a point higher than that of the prior month.
Those who are no longer looking for work, so-called discouraged workers, are not counted in the official unemployment statistics, according to the BLS.
BLS said the December unemployment rate increased a tenth of a point to 4.7%, well below the Obama-era high of 10%. Last month, the number of statistically enumerated unemployed stood at 7,529,000, an increase of 120,000 from the previous month.
The Dow Jones Industrial Average (DJIA) was trading at 19978.74, up 79.45 points, or 0.40%, at 12:41 p.m. Central, mostly on the strength of the technology sector, as investors tried to gauge what the meaning of the employment report was, for the long-term.