While the February unemployment rate eased from 7.92% to 7.74%, 40% of the fall resulted from a decline in the civilian labor force of 130,000 due to both the weak economy and retiring Boomers. As a result, the labor force participation rate hit a new cyclical low of 63.5%, a level last seen in 9/81 and a fall of 3.8 percentage points from the peak of 67.3% in 4/00.