“Labor force
participation in the United States for prime-age workers reached a peak in the
late 1990s and then took a steep dive in the 2001 recession. In the 2007
recession, it took an even steeper tumble, reaching a low point in 2015, nearly
eight years after the initial downturn. While we have seen improvements since,
they have been modest. So today, the share of men and women in their prime
working years who are employed or actively searching for a job is far lower
than it was in the 1990s. What’s really interesting in these data is that, unlike
the trends for retirement and fertility, this one is unique to the United
States. We don’t see the same thing happening in other advanced economies. …
Although the share
of young people with four-year college degrees is rising, in 2016 only 37% of
25- to 29-year-olds had a college diploma (Snyder, de Brey, and Dillow 2018).
This falls short of the progress in many of our international competitors (OECD
2018), but also means that many of our young people are underprepared for the
jobs in our economy.”
