The Hamilton Project at the Brookings Institution finds that the declining labor force participation (LFP) rates of 16-64-year-olds since 2000 is considerably influenced by the declining share of teenagers (16-19) who work during the school year. The report finds that if teenagers had participated in the labor force at their 2000 rates, the overall LFP rate among 16-64-year-olds would be 1.3 percentage points higher. The authors documented significant increases in the share of teens who do not participate in the labor force specifically because they are students, including during the summer.
