More than 720,000 Americans abandoned the workforce in June, marking the steepest one-month drop in prime-age labour force participation since June 1976, excluding the COVID-19 pandemic era, according to data from the St. Louis Federal Reserve cited by CNBC.
Behind the headline figures, a swelling cohort of workers in their prime earning years is stepping away from the labour market entirely, triggering what economists warn could be a long-term structural reshaping of the US economy.
