Lea Rendell

May 25, 2023 | brookings.edu | Lea Rendell |Louise Sheiner |James Stock

Labor force participation plummeted by more than 3 percentage points during the first two months of the COVID-19 pandemic in 2020, representing a decline of more than 8.2 million people. While about half of the drop was quickly regained, participation has stagnated at about 1 percentage point below its pre-pandemic level.

Mar 29, 2023 | brookings.edu | Katharine G. Abraham |Lea Rendell

Long COVID, fear of catching COVID, and Americans’ shifting priorities for the balance between work and personal activities may explain more than half of the drop in U.S. labor force participation over the past three years, suggests a paper discussed at the Brookings Papers on Economic Activity (BPEA) conference on March 30, 2023.