Work

The labor force participation rate is the percentage of a country's working-age population that is employed or actively looking for work. It is the best way to compare jobs year to year. The rate has still not gone back to pre covid times. In 2020 the rate was 63.3% and today it stands at 62.7 The reasons for this are complicated. According to Common Sense Institute, about 7 million men of prime working age are not currently in the workforce in the United States. This is due to a 4.4 percentage point drop in the labor force participation rate (LFPR) for prime-age men over the past 50 years. The current LFPR for prime-age men is 89.7%.  In recent years it has become easier to qualify for social security disability. For example in 1970 1% of the population were on SS disability and in 2022 it was 2.7%. As the population ages many people stay home to take care of ailing parents. As more women entered the work force in recent years they became eligible for benefits. You must pay SS in five of the last ten years to qualify. In spite of this there are several million able bodied men of working age who are not working and there seems to be no reason they are not working. For those who are interested in past years here is a site. https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/CIVPART The reason for the low values before 1975 is the number of women in the work force