Since the oldest baby boomers are just turning 62 this year, any of them who retired over the past several years retired "early," and should not, therefore, need to be "carried" by the workforce. That's the good news.

The 6% unemployment rate that was "considered good" during the 80s was not, in fact, anything like full employment. The drop in unemployment, to 4%, in the 90s is proof of that. The White House press releases of those days, backed up by right-wing propaganda, got the media to say that 6% was full employment. (In fact, the unemployment rate dropped to 5.0% in 1989.)

More people in the workforce means greater demand, which is matched by the greater supply generated by more workers. In general, that means a higher standard of living. Recently, not only has labor force participation declined, but median income (after adjusting for inflation) has declined as well.

Trying to correlate job availability with generational size is difficult at best, but not impossible. The 12 million jobs created during the Carter administration's four years were considered insufficient, and unemployment went from 7.5% to 5.7% and back up to 7.5%. The 23 million jobs created during the eight years of the Clinton administration, however, were a tremendous success, as the unemployment rate went from 7.3% to 4.2% (up from a low of 4.0%). The difference in unemployment rates despite similar job creation rates could be chalked up to the difference between baby boom and GenX size. But the rise in the labor force participation rate was also far greater during the Carter years than during the Clinton years, due in part to the number of women who entered the job market. The topology required to create a full explanation of all these numbers is complex, at best.

But those factors don't explain the unprecedented decline in labor force participation rates over the past seven years. Nor do they explain why the employment-population ratio has not come anywhere close to its 2000 peak -- another unprecedented decline. It stands to reason that there is another factor, or combination of factors, at work here. I believe those factors can be lumped together into one big group, labeled the "Bush administration economic agenda," and defined by the statement that below a certain point, when tax rates are made less progressive, the economy pays the price.

There is no doubt that there is a point "t" on the Laffer curve (defined as the tax rate that delivers maximum revenue for government), and there is a good chance that sometime after WWII federal income taxes were on the right side of that point. When that is the case, then lower taxes are an unqualified good thing. But I maintain the following: 1) That the Reagan tax cuts left us farther from "t" on the left-hand side of the curve than we may have been on the right-hand side in the 70s; 2) That the tax increases (almost entirely on the wealthy) pushed through during Bush41 and the first year of the Clinton administration not only helped balance our budget, but also allowed targeted tax cuts to stimulate economic growth; 3) That the Bush43 tax cuts were detrimental to the economy in both the short- and long-term; and 4) That the employment charts are evidence of the accuracy of these assertions.

Enough for now; more to come later.