A Bureau of Labor Statistics report showed the percentage of the U.S. population not in the labor force jumped to 35% in 2014, up from 31.3% in 2004. The figure included a 100% increase in 16- to 24-year-olds who cited retirement as the reason for dropping out of the labor force.
The December 2015 report contained data from the Current Population Survey and its Annual Social and Economic Supplement, and looked back at the prior year's data. It considered a person out of the workforce if he or she did not have a job and was not looking for work.
The number of 16- to 24-year-olds who claimed an early retirement climbed to 166,000 participants in 2014 out of a total of 38.5 million overall retirees.
Additionally, the number of men aged 25 to 54 who received Social Security disability benefits – according to the Social Security Administration – rose to 2 million in 2014 from 1.8 million in 2004. Further, the number male veterans aged 25 to 54 who reported a service-connected disability nearly doubled to 1.2 million in 2014 from 726,000 in 2003. The 2003 figure was used because the CPS Veterans Supplement was not conducted in 2004. The number of male veterans in that age group who reported a severe disability – a disability rating of 60% or more – increased to 384,000 in 2014 from 134,000 in 2003; that figure represented 6.3% of the group's population.
Further, the 10-year timeframe showed men aged 24 to 54 not in the labor force increased to 11.5% in 2014 from 9.2% a decade earlier. The reason most cited by males in this category was illness or disability. The number of men who cited home responsibilities edged up from 0.9% to 1.2%.
Women in the same age bracket cited home responsibilities as the main reason for not working; the percentage of women not in the labor force rose to 24.2% in 2014 from 21.9% in 2004.
Of the more than 87 million people 16 years and older neither worked nor looked for work in 2014, 16.3 million cited illness or disability and 16 million were attending school.
The report also showed that, as baby boomers age, they “put upward pressure on the percentage of the overall population that is not in the labor force.” Baby boomers, categorized by BLS as born between 1946 and 1964 have had a profound effect on the population's size and composition, according to the report. In 2004, those 55 and older made up 28% of the total population, while in 2014 that group accounted for 34% of the population.
The proportion of older adults who were not in the labor force declined from 32.7% in 2004 to 31.7% in 2014. Older adults were most likely to cite retirement as the main reason for not working, although the percentage that cited this reason decreased. The older adult population saw an increase in the proportion that cited illness or disability as the main reason for not working to 12.6% in 2014 from 10.7% in 2004.
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