Washington, D.C. (July 11, 2022) – A new analysis by the Center for Immigration Studies shows that over the last two decades the labor force participation rate of the U.S.-born has declined dramatically, particularly for men without a bachelor’s degree. Labor force participation measures the share of working-age people working or looking for work. The unemployment rate, which has returned to the pre-Covid level, only includes people who have looked for a job in the prior four weeks, and does not reflect the huge number of people who are not even looking for a job.
“The increase in people on the economic sidelines across the country is extremely troubling because non-work is associated with a host of social problems, from crime to opioid addiction,” said Steven Camarota, the report’s lead author and the Center’s Director of Research. He added, “tolerating widespread illegal immigration and allowing in so many legal immigrants to fill jobs makes it so easy for our country to largely ignore this huge problem.”
Among the findings, based on data from the Bureau of Labor Statistics:
- Covid-19 exacerbated the long-term decline in labor force participation among U.S.-born Americans to some extent, but the falloff predates the pandemic.
- The share of working-age (16-64) U.S.-born Americans in the labor force — working or looking for work — in every single state was lower in the first quarter of 2022 than in the first quarter of 2000.
- But the falloff in work pre-dates the pandemic. In 40 states, plus the District of Columbia (D.C.), labor force participation of the U.S.-born (16-64) was lower in the first quarter of 2007, before the Great Recession, than it was at the peak of the expansion in the first quarter of 2000.
- Comparing the peak in 2007 and the peak in 2019, before Covid hit, shows a decline in labor force participation of the U.S.-born (16-64) in 43 states.
- Immigrants (legal and illegal), or the foreign-born, do not show the same decline in labor force participation.
- Of U.S.-born adults (18-64), without a bachelor’s degree, labor force participation was lower in the first quarter of 2019, even before the pandemic, than in the first quarter of 2000 in every state plus D.C., with an average fall-off of 5.5 percentage points.
- Among “prime age” men (25-54), who traditionally have the highest rates of work, labor force participation among the U.S.-born without a bachelor’s was lower in 2022 than in 2000 in 49 states plus D.C.
- If we go back to 1979, it shows that the decline is extremely long-term among prime-age men. From the peak of the expansion in 1979 to the peak in 2000, labor force participation for less-educated prime-age men declined in 47 states plus D.C.
- Among less-educated U.S.-born women, the picture is somewhat different, with labor force participation generally increasing until 2000. But since 2000 it has fallen in almost every state in a manner similar to men.
- Comparing 2000 to 2022 for U.S.-born prime-age women without a bachelor’s shows labor force participation declined in 47 states plus D.C.
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