Reference no: EM131586751

The labor participation rate was down to 62.8% in June of 2017, or down over 3 percentage points since 2008. Each percentage point here equals about 2.5 million Americans. Why are more than 7.5 million previously employed Americans no longer looking for a job today? Why are a near record 95 million Americans (or 15 million more than in 2008) not looking for work? Are they discouraged? Are they finding solace in the rich welfare benefits being paid out?

Why are Social Security Disability payments being paid to over 2 million more people since 2008 and why are SNAP (food stamp program) payments up from 28 million recipients in 2008 to over 43 million recipients in 2016?

If many of these 7.5 million people (assuming the old normal labor participation rate held, remember, it held for thirty years in a row, before Obama) were looking for and finding jobs, it is a good bet that the American economy would be lots more robust than it presently is today. Do Americans collectively have the political will to produce more, instead of only worry about consumption? What might happen if we backed off passing new regulations, revoked ObamaCare and Dodd/Frank and lowered marginal tax rates significantly?