The Bureau of Labor Statistics estimates that 94,609,000 people in this country are not in the labor force, according to a new report.
That’s a whopping 29 percent of Americans.
To put that in perspective, over one in every four Americans is not currently employed and not looking for a job. The country’s workforce is shrinking, and that leaves fewer people to carry the tax burden, to fund Social Security, and to produce the goods and services that keep the economy running.
A healthy labor force participation rate is based on demographics: When every adult who is able is either working, or looking for work, the labor force participation rate is healthy. The rate was hovering around 65 percent when President Obama took office in 2009, and hasn’t been as low as it is today since the late 1970s.
Several million people are not in the labor force by virtue of demographics: They’re retirees, children, or stay-at-home parents/caretakers. But this doesn’t come close to accounting for everyone in that group of 94.6 million people.
Plenty of the missing workers are between the ages of 25 and 54, what economists call “prime age.” Most of these prime age workforce dropouts are male. A large majority of millennial men outside the workforce live with a family member, and most men (of all ages) outside the workforce receive disability benefits.
Part of the problem is that the country’s high incarceration rate affects young adult men most acutely. Ninety percent of prisoners are male, and most prisoners are between the ages of 20 and 35. Out of every eight adult men in America, one has a felony on his record. This can make the job hunt even harder – and increase the odds of recidivism. Part of the problem is the way this country handles nonviolent drug offenses, derailing lives over crimes that are only marginally harmful.
As for the rest of them, did these guys find themselves unable to get a job, and then give up looking? Not usually. Only one in seven men outside the workforce says a lack of available jobs is the reason he’s not working.
Part of the shrinking male workforce is due to the rise in stay-at-home dads. Five percent of adult men outside the workforce made that decision so that they could be the primary caregiver for another person. (For comparison, 40 percent of women outside the workforce are primary caregivers.)
While some are quick to blame the rise of non-working men on laziness, greed, or Peter Pan syndrome, the data paint a different picture. The workforce participation rate for prime-age men varies widely across geographic regions. Men living in cities with overall high rates of educational attainment fare better than their peers in more rural areas (save for those with burgeoning oil industries).
Men are now less likely than women to complete a college degree, and a college degree is the ticket to a higher-skill job. This is crucially important because lower-skill jobs are disappearing in favor of automation or cheap labor overseas. These men are left with an economy that can’t use what they have to offer.
Expanded vocational training in high schools may be the ticket out of a life of dependency for these men, since 85 percent of them do not hold bachelor’s degrees. It is no wonder that Donald Trump’s protectionist populist message resonated most strongly with low-skilled adult men.
