The depressing reality of ‘the recovery’: Americans aren’t getting jobs. They’re retiring.

For most of his presidency, President Obama has been focused on the economic short run — which makes sense, given that he took office in the midst of the biggest recession since the 1930s. With his big economic speech today, he’s shifting to the long-run, talking about the structural changes he thinks the economy needs to see for the U.S. to prosper going forward.

But anyone who thinks that the short-run battle is over should take a look at a new report by Daniel Alpert over at the Century Foundation. Alpert notes that while the headline unemployment number is well below its recession-era peak, that’s almost 100 percent due to declines in the labor force participation rate — that is, the share of the population that’s either employed or actively looking for work. Don’t believe him? Take a look at this chart:

Via: Washington Post
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CHART: Paul Ryan Lays Out a Vision for Reforming Welfare, Fighting Poverty

In his speech today at Cleveland State University, Representative Paul Ryan (R–WI) laid out a vision for reforming the nation’s approach to poverty.

“With few exceptions, government’s approach has been to spend lots of money on centralized, bureaucratic, top-down anti-poverty programs,” Ryan stated. “The mindset behind this approach is that a nation should measure compassion by the size of the federal government and how much it spends.” This has “created and perpetuated a debilitating culture of dependency, wrecking families and communities.”

He’s right. Since the “War on Poverty” began five decades ago, the federal government hasspent nearly $20 trillion (adjusted for inflation) on what is now a welfare system consisting of over 80 programs. Total annual spending is now approaching $1 trillion. See our newly updated chart: (continues below chart)

The Foundry

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