The Incredible Shrinking Workforce

The complex intersection of demography, public policy, and economic cyclicality has converged to shrink the U.S. labor force since the financial panic of 2008. As a result, those who focus on the most publicized traditional unemployment metrics are getting a distorted impression about the health of domestic labor markets. What’s really going on? What are the implications? What does this mean for you? We’ll explain.

The U.S. economy added 69,000 jobs in May 2012, the weakest growth in a year. The unemploymen.....