The US economy is currently at one of its lowest unemployment rates in history and has around ten million unfilled job positions according to the US Bureau of Labor Statistics; however, labor force participation rates remain historically low, and is at the lowest level ever recorded for prime-age males. Though perhaps exacerbated by the COVID pandemic, the trend was well-established prior to 2019 and may be associated with other trends suchas
Great Resignation (Trends 2022) and
Playing with FIRE (Trends 2019). What gives? Perhaps Tyler Childers got it right in his song Whitehouse Road, “Get me higher than my grocery bill.” Whether it be loneliness, lack of job skills, substance abuse or a combination of all three, there is a significant portion of the US population that has gone from forgotten, to unproductive, to becoming a serious drain on public resources. According to the Association of American Medical Colleges, 21.2 million Americans have a substance abuse disorder. The US Department of Health and Human Services estimates that 760,000 Americans have died of drug overdoses since 1999 and 10.1 million Americans over the age of 12 misused opioids in 2019. Relatedly, the homeless issue in many large US cities is only getting worse despite the billions of dollars being spent. According to the Hoover Institute, San Francisco alone is spending $852 million in its current budget year on homeless and supportive housing for its estimated 8,000 homeless people. That equates to $106,500 per homeless individual- this in a city that spends roughly $19,500 annually per student in its public schools. It simply is not sustainable. The US is facing a structural labor deficit despite a growing population, and those remaining in the workforce are not becoming more productive despite widespread use of technology. This lack of productivity appears more severe in the US, but it is a global issue. Whether it be work-from-anywhere (
WFA Trends 2021), lying flat in China, or quiet quitting, the world needs to address this issue if it hopes for satisfactory economic growth going forward.