The Kobeissi Letter@KobeissiLetter
Never before have so many Americans been outside the labor force:
The number of Americans who are not in the labor force rose by +832,000 in June, to 105.8 million, an all-time high.
These are people who are neither employed nor actively looking for work.
This is now 2.2 million above the 2020 pandemic peak, when the global economy was shut down.
So far in 2026, 2.5 million Americans have exited the labor force.
By comparison, 68.7 million Americans were not in the labor force at the beginning of this century.
As a % of the population aged 16+, this figure is up to 38.5%, the highest since the 1970s, excluding the pandemic period.
The US job market is weak under the surface.