A new report from the Brookings Institution analyzes the characteristics of the 24 million men and women of prime working age (25-54) who are out of the labor force, meaning they are unemployed and not seeking work. Who Is Out of the Labor Force? finds that this group of Americans is largely composed of women with a high school education or less, many of whom report caregiving responsibilities as their reason for not seeking work. Of the 7 million households with a prime-age male who is out of the labor force, nearly half are among the bottom 20 percent of earners in the country, according to the report.
