DarkDude joined in and replied with this 3 months ago, 6 hours later[^][v]#1,397,497
That’s not how it works, Americans are 10 years older on average than they were in 1929, so more people don’t work because more people are retired. In the past, people just died. In the 1930s, only about 5% of the population was 65 or older, but in 2024, 16% of US adults were retired. There are also other reasons why adults don’t work, for example about 4.5% of Americans are undergraduate students, and only about 40% of undergraduate students have enough time to work while they’re in school. Then you have to think about, who’s disabled, who is a stay at home parent, etc. My point is, not all adults actually need jobs, so they’re not included in the employment rate.