Wednesday, April 5, 2017

Jamie Dimon on labor force participatioin and disability


  - by New Deal democrat

First of all, sorry for the light posting this week.  I've had some urgent business I need to attend to irl.

But I wanted to post this for future reference.  Via Business Insider, this is from Jamie Dimon's letter to stockholders:
If the work participation rate for this group [men ages 25-54] went back to just 93% – the current average for the other developed nations – approximately 10 million more people would be working in the United States. Some other highly disturbing facts include: Fifty-seven percent of these non-working males are on disability ....
I don't know where he got the 57% statistic from, but if it is true it is potent evidence that the main factor behind the 60 year long decline in prime age labor force participation by men is an increase in those on disability, probably due to both the expansion of the program, and better longevity and diagnostics -- and probably also tied in to opiate addiction as well.