Time Off

I've been hearing a lot recently about the falling labor force participation rate, or the percentage of the population that is either working or looking for work. Generally, speaking, the unemployment rate is the percentage of this segment of the population that is unsuccessful in finding work at any given time.

There seems to be a substantial amount of hand-wringing over the relatively low numbers, but reasons for the hand-wringing are less common. This seems to be born of the idea that the American work ethic ("The average worker in the United States clocks more hours each year than those in Canada, Australia, Western Europe and now even Japan.") is a good thing in and of itself.

But work is not an end in itself. It is a means to an end. And while the current unemployment rate may be low, the fact that one exists at all proves that the American economy doesn't even need all of the people who present themselves to be workers in order for supply the level of goods and services that people wish to buy. (Okay, so that's not entirely true... but it's unlikely that businesses, or their customers, are going to want to pay the wages that would be needed to make cellular telephones in domestic factories.) In other words, no-one is pointing to any shortages that a boost in workers would cure.

And if people are not working because they don't particularly need to work, I don't see why this should be considered a problem. If people have found something that gives a better return for their time and energy than paid employment, more power to them.