Don’t Let the Data Fool You: The US Is Failing Working Women
The record labor force participation rate among prime-age females is a bit of a mirage.
The best way to get more women in the workforce.
Photographer: Sean Gallup/Getty Images
The US economy notched a welcome, if puzzling, milestone in 2024 when the labor force participation rate among prime-age women — 25 to 54 — rose to a record 78.4%, increasing about five percentage points from a decade earlier. This is unambiguously good, as more workers equals a bigger economy. The reason it’s perplexing is that many economists (including myself) warned at the end of 2023 that many women were about to drop out of the labor market as pandemic-era programs to support working mothers came to an end.
During the height of Covid-19, Congress sent $53 billion to states to bolster child-care providers. Those funds mostly expired in September 2023, setting up what was a dubbed a “child care cliff” that would decimate providers relying on state aid. When the funding ran out, America went over the cliff and yet the number of working women surprisingly increased.