The U.S. labor force participation rate rose rapidly during the 1960s, 1970s, and 1980s. It then flattened out in the 1990s, and since 2000 it has fallen, without much sign of an imminent rebound. We attempt to distinguish between cyclical and structural influences on the participation rate by...

The U.S. labor market witnessed two apparently unrelated secular movements in the last 30 years: a decline in unemployment between the early 1980s and the early 2000s, and a decline in participation since the early 2000s. Using CPS micro data and a stock-flow accounting framework, we show that a...

This paper presents estimates of the effect of emergency and extended unemployment benefits (EEB) on the unemployment rate and the labor force participation rate using a data set containing information on individuals likely eligible and ineligible for EEB back to the late 1970s. To identify...