The U.S. labor force participation rate fell to 61.4 percent in July, its lowest level since the COVID-19 pandemic, as 264,000 people left the labor force last month, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS). The labor participation rate is down from this year’s January high of 62.1 percent but remains above the decade’s lowest point, 60.1 percent, in April 2020. The overall rate of civilian labor force participation, which is seasonally adjusted, has been on a downward trend, dropping 4.7 percentage points since July 2006, the bureau found. The BLS found that, compared with last July, much of the employment loss primarily affected local government education, which lost 50,000 jobs, and retail, which lost 19,000 jobs. The jobs data show what I feared: we should not ask people to lose their jobs to offset inflation measurement error.