Labor Recovery Leaves More Workers Behind - WSJ.com

Participation rate at lowest level since 1978 - WSJ.com

"The long, slow recovery in the U.S. job market is leaving ever-more Americans on the sidelines—and complicating the calculus for Federal Reserve policy makers weighing when the economy can get by with less help."
"At the recent pace of hiring, the economy won't get back to prerecession levels of employment, adjusting for population growth, for more than eight years.
The unemployment rate, meanwhile, fell not because people found jobs but because they gave up looking. "
"As a share of the population, fewer Americans are working or looking for work than at any time in the past 35 years."
"The share of the population that is working or looking for work—a measure known as the participation rate—fell to its lowest level since 1978, when women were still under-represented in the workforce and manufacturing accounted for more than a quarter of private-sector jobs."