About 155 million Americans are participating in the US labor force in one capacity or another and to some extent or the other. However, about 94 million adult Americans are not participating in the labor force at all and the number has risen markedly in recent years. The question is why.

To be sure, demographical changes are involved, but so are structural changes in the labor market as well. Many out of the market lack serious and significant college education while that market has shifted to demanding ever more training. There are more than 5 million job openings presently unfilled but virtually all employers want serious skills or capabilities. The bogus unemployment rate of around 5 percent is a ruse designed to mask the problems of the 94 million that I will dig into here. American policy has developed a studied blind eye and indifference to the problems of these Americans most of whom are or were in the decimated American middle class.

The demographic changes, or in some cases, excuses, are pretty obvious. Boomers retiring (but why), millennials going back to or staying in school longer (again why) and similar comments. But the demographic changes in so short a period do not explain or account for most of the 94 million Americans not in the labor force presently. The evidence is about half of the decline in prime age male labor force participation is due to feeling compelled to take early retirement, and that only 20 to 30 percent of the decline is due to reduced such labor demanded albeit at lower wages.. Many misinterpret the data in an effort to waive the problem away with simple explanations. But much more is going on as I will explain.

One problem rarely mentioned is the change in the structure of demand in the labor market. The big change was when the market had a job position for most all workers at all skill levels with acceptable pay to when the market only wanted much more highly skilled and educated workers for higher paid jobs. Part of that was due to increased mechanization and robotitization of much work. Part of that in turn was due to the hatred of middle management toward the rank and file workers with their breaks, sick leaves, demands, unions and many other problems.

Another part of structural change in demand was much of the need for lower end labor disappeared when American business shifted millions of jobs overseas to cheaper labor abroad in order to pocket the difference. The bottom fell out of the low end labor market except for location specific and highly interactive grunt work like flipping burgers, grooming dogs and installing air conditioning systems. Much low skill work shipped abroad was later mechanized and robotitized there too. The structural demand for labor in the US has shifted big time. Many in middle management of the rank and file also lost their jobs as well when those jobs were also shipped overseas. The impact on middle class American has been huge. Many middle managers lost their jobs and went to flipping burgers before retiring early in despair.

Many retired early because they could not find a decent job. Too much unskilled labor was soon pursuing too few suitable jobs. As Juhn, Murphy and Topel (1991, 2002) explain, the ensuing secular decline in real wages of less skilled men is a major contributor to the secular decline in the participation rate of prime aged men in the labor force. CEA (2016) reaches a similar conclusion, as the decline in labor force participation has been steeper for less educated men. People do not want to work for peanuts is a key reason for lower labor force participation in America's middle class and part of the reason for the middle classes decline. But there is more.

Early retirement of prime aged men has had huge consequences. Marital strife rose, so did divorces. Homes and savings were lost and the situation was made much worse by the housing crash and Great Recession when many others lost their homes, too. Image a likely situation.

Middle manager husband losses his management job paying $65k a year and the income from it. After unsuccessfully looking around for an acceptable job and much family strife, he takes early retirement. His wife is hugely upset. Son, a 25 year old millennial, is sleeping on the sofa, has a $10,000 college loan and is going to some fraudulent for profit school and getting a useless education before dropping out, while his high school age sister is forever complaining about how he and his messes have taken over the living room of the house. But the family soon loses its house when the family savings are depleted and the mortgage company forecloses. There are many variations on this theme. Others don't lose their house until the housing market crashes. The psychological stress and damage are considerable. That is what the evidence shows.

Even by international standards the participation rate of prime age men in the U.S. labor force is notably low. Only Italy is lower among all 33 OECD advanced nations. Because prime age men usually have the highest labor force participation rate of any demographic group, the result is disturbing.

One reason now listed for lack of labor force participation among prime aged retired men is the current state of their health. Forty-three percent of prime age men who are out of the labor force reported their health as fair or poor. It is highly probable that extended joblessness and despair induced by weak demand for their labor have caused or exacerbated many of the physical, emotional and mental health-related problems that currently afflict many prime age men out of the labor force. The evidence is about half of the decline in prime age male labor force participation is due to early retirement, and that only 20 to 30 percent of the decline is due to reduced labor demand, albeit at lower wages, suggesting a major role for the factors I identify tied to mental and now physical health.

Survey results for prime aged workers retired from the labor force indicate that such individuals experience a great prevalence and intensity of pain in their daily lives. As a group, such workers out of the labor force report feeling pain during about half of their time. And for those who report a disability, the prevalence and intensity of pain are higher - disabled prime age men report spending 71 percent of their time in some pain. It is surmised much of this pain short of a verifiable disability is psychosomatic. Other survey data report that unemployed 55-70 year old women, are unhappy and dissatisfied with their lives. Men in the 55-70 year old group who are unemployed also appear to be quite dissatisfied and unhappy with their lives compared with employed men and women the same age

This pain and unhappiness contrasts to its absence among my geriatric ex-pat friends and buddies all in our seventies and early eighties. We are all active, hale and hearty. One, 80, drives around on a big Harley and is still practicing architecture. Also, isn't 60 now supposed to be the new 50, as SS talk proceeds about raising the retirement age? Has the economy so damaged so many middle class Americans psychologically? I think it has.

We have a major unreported social problem, if not a scandal, here and few have any clue about it. One partially informed scholar, for example, calls the increase in jobless men who are not looking for work "America's invisible crisis" and he doesn't even reach the reasons or consequences. Many deny any problem. But the truth is the decline in real wages and loss of decent jobs for many men and women, and the ensuing trauma, unhappiness and pain they have produced, is a major contributor to 1) the secular decline in the participation rate of prime aged men and also some women in the labor force and also to 2) their impaired happiness and health. But, hey, the rich got richer.