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CHART OF THE DAY: The prime working age of discontent

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The country is undergoing simultaneous plagues that are creating an employment catastrophe for men in their prime working years. There is the coronavirus plague, which attacks the poorest and unhealthiest among us, and then there is the plague of discontent among men unable to find suitable employment.

While women have joined the workforce en masse in recent decades, men — and their sons who could once rely on factory jobs to support a family — have seen those jobs disappear as corporate profits increased.

Using the latest establishment payroll survey released on Friday, we estimate that 18% of prime-working age men, or those 25 to 54 years old, are either unemployed or have become discouraged and have stopped looking for work. That is an improvement from the 24% non-employed rate in May, but remains near 2008-10 Great Recession-era levels of unrecoverable economic output, household wealth and self-worth.

For more information on how the coronavirus is affecting midsize businesses, please visit the RSM Coronavirus Resource Center.

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About Joseph Brusuelas

@JoeBrusuelas

Joe Brusuelas, “chief economist to the middle market,” is the preeminent voice championing issues and policies facing midsize companies in the United States and around the world. An award-winning economist, Brusuelas has more than 20 years’ experience analyzing U.S. monetary policy, labor markets, fiscal policy, international finance, economic indicators and the condition of the U.S. consumer.

A member of the Wall Street Journal’s forecasting panel and the UCLA Anderson School of Management's Board of Directors, Brusuelas regularly briefs members of Congress and other senior officials regarding the impacts of federal policy on the middle market and the factors by which middle market executives make business decisions. He also frequently offers his insights on the U.S., Canadian and global economies in the financial media. In 2020, he was named one of the 100 most influential economists by Richtopia. In December 2023, Brusuelas and the economics team were recognized on Bloomberg's list of Best Bond Forecasters after correctly predicting where the benchmark Treasury would end the year.

Before joining RSM in 2014, Brusuelas spent four years as a senior economist at Bloomberg L.P. and the Bloomberg Briefs newsletter group, where he co-founded the award-winning Bloomberg Economic Brief. Earlier in his career, he was a director at Moody's Analytics covering the U.S. and global economies for the Dismal Scientist website. He also served as chief economist at Merk Investments L.L.C. and chief U.S. economist at IDEAglobal.

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