The Bureau of Labor Statistics released jobs numbers for January Friday showing that nonfarm payroll employment increased by 157,000 and the unemployment rate rose to 7.9 percent.
Lost in these headline numbers was another rise in the number of people not in the labor force.
This number now stands at a staggering 89 million, up from 80.5 million when President Obama took office.
This means that there are currently 8.5 million more Americans not in the labor force than just four years ago.
Forget all the other numbers.
This continued explosion of people not in the labor force should be tremendously concerning as it represents an obstacle for the government to ever balance the budget without drastically raising taxes on those still working.
