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The gray area of job status

By
Terry Keenan
Published Aug. 3, 2014, 4:53 a.m. ET

Happy Birthday, Mr. President. President Obama will turn 53 Monday, which means he and the First Lady are part of that cohort of Americans who inevitably get frequent mailings from AARP.

It also means that by the time the president leaves office in January 2017, he will be in the only band of workers who have thrived during his time at the White House — that is workers over 55.

Yes, while many economists applauded the jobs report for July, and the economy has been able to create more than 200,000 jobs a month since February, that job stability has continued to come from the 32.5 million Americans over 55 who are still in the workplace.

It’s a number that has never been larger than it is now. In fact, the unemployment rate for older workers stood at just 4.4 percent in June — down from 5.5 percent a year ago — a number that by most measures is considered a full-employment rate.

Unfortunately, as many 50-somethings know, the job prospects for their children don’t match up to the sunny numbers the overall employment report indicated last Friday.

According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics household survey, there was a jobs decline of 142,000 for workers in the 25-to-54 age group. In fact, it would take more than 2 million new jobs to fill the hole left by the Great Recession.

For those ages 18 to 29, the effective unemployment rate, which takes into consideration labor force participation, is a staggering 15.1 percent —a demographic train wreck that will weigh on the economy for years.

Of course, with tens of millions of baby boomers trying to rebuild their nest eggs, not to mention the equity in their homes, delaying retirement makes sense. What’s more, with interest rates near zero, more risk-free options for retirement (such as Treasury bonds or savings accounts) have been off the table for years.

Which brings us to Fed chief Janet Yellen — who will turn 68 later this month. Like many of her fellow baby boomers, Yellen is thriving in the workforce while younger people even with multiple Ivy League degrees struggle.

She may want to use her birthday to consider how the Fed’s interest-rate agenda is badly skewing the demographics of how people live and work in America today.