• Mixed: the trends go in strongly opposite directions during different periods.
  • Unclear: too few years of data to establish a trend.

Measures in green indicate an improving national trend or that we are outperforming at least 80% of countries.

Measures in red indicate a declining national trend or that we are outperforming less than 50% of countries.

Measures in yellow indicate stable trends or that we are outperforming 50-79% of countries.

Summary of Results

Our metrics on the US workforce show mixed success. We have low long-term unemployment, and we rank above 50% of other high-income countries, and are improving globally, on hourly earnings growth. However, we are in the bottom half of high-income countries—and declining globally—on employment and labor force participation rates. These last two trends are driven by declining workforce participation among men combined with slower growth than peer countries in workforce participation among women. Explanations include declining interest and opportunities in work among men, some of which are related to weak wage growth for working people, and safety net programs that may discourage work.

Related Topics

The above discussion connects our measures of work and labor to many other topics covered in this report. We discuss the connection between wages and productivity and how GDP is heavily dependent on the size of the labor force in the Economy section. We also note how delay and decline in marriage is related to workforce participation (see the discussion of the percentage of children growing up with a single parent in the Children and Family section). Finally, we discuss why our wage growth and productivity measures might be higher than our education levels (see the Education section).

Other Measures Considered

All four of the measures voted on for this topic were supported by the board.