Labor participation age brackets


History of Labor Participation by Age Bracket

A history of labor market participation by age bracket
Choose an age bracket to see how labor participation within that bracket has changed over time. Click on an area of the chart to isolate that category.


Recessions are shaded, red lines indicate a major change to the CPS survey.

Note: This chart is updated monthly. Data is from the Census Bureau’s Current Population Survey. Basic monthly data are used and all months are averaged together for each year. The survey was revised in 1989 and 1994; changes to both question wording and survey weights result in discontinuities in these years that may not be attributable to real changes in the economy. Recession data from: Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis, NBER based Recession Indicators for the United States from the Period following the Peak through the Trough [USREC], retrieved from FRED, Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis https://research.stlouisfed.org/fred2/series/USREC, March 1, 2016.

March 25, 2016

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