Who is not working and why

About 62% of civilians in the United States, 16 years and older, said they either had a job or were looking in July 2026. Of course this number varies a lot depending on what group of people you look at.

For example, the percentage of those in the labor force tends to be higher for men than women, but percentages have been shifting over the decades.

Participation in the labor force, men and women

Of civilian population 16 years and older

This is based on the Current Population Survey, which is ongoing with monthly releases.

The rate of men in the labor force fell around eleven percentage points since 1984. On the other hand, the rate of women in the labor force rose until 2000, leveled off, decreased slightly, and then leveled off again up to the present. Covid in 2020 brought everything down temporarily.

Now let’s look at the trends by age.

Participation in the labor force, by age group

Of civilian population 16 years and older

It doesn’t look like much changed over the past few decades for those in the middle of their careers. However, the older and younger groups go in opposite directions.

People are staying in the labor force later and not entering as early. A decline among teenagers is especially prominent in the 2000s. By the way, those seasonal spikes for the young groups indicate summer jobs.

So there is definitely variation between men and women and between the age groups. I bet we’ll see something if we compare sex and age together.

But instead of looking at those in the labor force, let’s look at the reasons people are not working. For those not in the labor force, the CPS asks respondents the main reason. Then, for those who do not say they are retired or unable to work, CPS follows with the main activity in place of work.

The following set of charts show the reasons over time for men. The data starts in 1994, because that’s when CPS started asking about activities. I’m also showing annual average instead of the monthly rates so we can see the trends better and grouped the middle-career ages for clarity.

Why men are not working

Based on employment status and activity of those not in labor force

Rates for men 55 to 64 show interesting movement between retirement and being unable to work. It seemed the two were converging, with maybe the latter overtaking the former, but they flattened and excess retirements flipped the direction during Covid.

I thought education would be a factor in men’s rate falling, but it did not change much. It seems like slower and smaller changes were more responsible, such as more younger men saying they were unable to work and more middle-aged men taking care of house and family.

Women show more obvious shifts in their reasons for not being in the labor force.

Why women are not working

Based on employment status and activity of those not in labor force

Younger women are more likely to be in school than taking care of a household. In fact, the household reason decline across all age groups.

Like the younger men, younger women have also shown an uptick in being unable to work. I wonder if this is related to the availability of entry-level jobs or something else?

See the reasons for more age groups below.

Reasons for not in labor force

Notes

Estimates are based on data from the Current Population Survey. I downloaded microdata via IPUMS. I analyzed and processed the data in R and made the charts with D3.js.