#Economy: The Men -- 25 to 54 -- who are out of the work force

In the news today: 33,000 jobs were lost in september. But apparently, the job loss can be attributed to the hurricanes in Texas and Florida which means the job market will (hopefully) eventually rebound:

"U.S. loses 33,000 jobs in September as hurricanes cause first decline in seven years"

http://www.marketwatch.com/story/blame-irma-and-harvey-us-loses-33000-jobs-in-september-in-first-decline-since-2010-2017-10-06

What they are saying?: “This single-month drop in payrolls should be temporary, doesn’t appear to be indicative of a broader economic slowdown, and will likely reverse next month,” said Jim Baird, chief investment office at Plante Moran Financial Advisors.

“The Fed and the markets will just ignore this report,” said Paul Ashworth of Capital Economics. “If past-storms, particularly Katrina, are any guide, employment will rebound markedly over the next few months.”

Nevertheless, seeing the red column in the job-numbers graphic when I opened the NYTimes business section was striking:

Something else I found interesting in the NYTimes story (which has a lot of info btw), was in regards to the men -- 25 to 64 -- who are out of the work force. & who were supposed to benefit from a "Trump economy":

https://www.nytimes.com/2017/10/06/business/economy/jobs-report-unemployment.html

'More troubling are the numbers of people in their prime working ages — 25 to 54 — who are out of the work force. 

About half of the men in that age group take pain medication daily, Mr. Krueger said. And the places with the highest level of opioid prescriptionsare also the ones where participation has fallen the most. Mr. Krueger blames the opioid epidemic for about 20 percent of the decline in the men’s participation rate.

The report indicates "prime-age male labor force participation" has actually fallen since Trump took office:

'Betsey Stevenson, an economist at the University of    Michigan and a former economic adviser to President Barack Obama, noted that this group’s involvement in the labor force had dropped in 2017:

“Trump promised to get these guys back to work,” she said. “Since he took office, prime-age male labor force participation has fallen by half a percentage point.”'

I found another article which examines the problem in greater detail:

"An Economic Tragedy: America’s Nonworking Men"
http://harvardpolitics.com/covers/an-economic-tragedy-americas-nonworking-men/ 
'“The 5 percent figure is one of the biggest hoaxes in modern politics” claimed then-Presidential candidate Donald Trump in August 2016, in reference to the unemployment rate, which at that point was 4.9 percent––down from the 2009 post-recession peak of 10 percent. While President Trump seems to have reversed his position on the veracity of unemployment statistics since assuming office, there was at least one sliver of truth to his initial criticisms Since the 1960s, there has been a steady decline in the labor force participation rate for prime-age men: those ages 25 to 54.'