© Reuters. Trump made claim during campaign, now proving true.

Investing.com - The final jobs report of the Obama era, released today, illustrates that the number of Americans not in the labor force has increased by 14,573,000, 18.09%, since January 2009, when Barack Obama became president of the U.S.

In December, according to the Labor Department’s Bureau of Labor Statistics, a record 95,102,000 Americans were not in the labor force, or 47,000 more than in November, and the labor force participation rate was 62.7%, a tenth of a point higher than in November.

The dropped to a 38-year low of 62.4% on Obama's watch, in September 2015. It was only 3-tenths of a point higher than that of the prior month.

Those who are no longer looking for work, so-called discouraged workers, are not counted in the official unemployment statistics, according to the BLS.

BLS said the December increased a tenth of a point to 4.7%, well below the Obama-era high of 10%. Last month, the number of statistically enumerated unemployed stood at 7,529,000, an increase of 120,000 from the previous month.

The (DJIA) was trading at 19978.74, up 79.45 points, or 0.40%, at 12:41 p.m. Central, mostly on the strength of the technology sector, as investors tried to gauge what the meaning of the employment report was, for the long-term.