More labor market freedom means more labor force participation

By Adam Millsap of Mercatus.

"The U.S. labor force participation (LFP) rate has yet to bounce back to its pre-recession level. Some of the decline is due to retiring baby-boomers but even the prime-age LFP rate, which only counts people age 25 – 54 and thus less affected by retirement, has not recovered.

Economists and government officials are concerned about the weak recovery in labor force participation. A high LFP rate is usually a sign of a strong economy—people are either working or optimistic about their chances of finding a job. A low LFP rate is often a sign of little economic opportunity or disappointment with the employment options available.

The U.S. is a large, diverse country so the national LFP rate obscures substantial state variation in LFP rates. The figure below shows the age 16 and up LFP rates for the 50 states and the U.S. as a whole (black bar) in 2014. (data)

The rates range from a high of 72.6% in North Dakota to a low of 53.1% in West Virginia. The U.S. rate was 62.9%. Several of the states with relatively low rates are in the south, including Mississippi, Alabama and Arkansas. Florida and Arizona also had relatively low labor force participation, which is not surprising considering their reputations as retirement destinations.

There are several reasons why some states have more labor force participation than others. Demographics is one: states with a higher percentage of people over age 65 and between 16 and 22 will have lower rates on average since people in these age groups are often retired or in school full time. States also have different economies made up of different industries and at any given time some industries are thriving while others are struggling.

Federal and state regulation also play a role. Federal regulation disparately impacts different states because of the different industrial compositions of state economies. For example, states with large energy industries tend to be more affected by federal regulation than other states.

States also tax and regulate their labor markets differently. States have different occupational licensing standards, different minimum wages and different levels of payroll and income taxes among other things. Each of these things alters the incentive for businesses to hire or for people to join the labor market and thus affects states’ LFP rates.

We can see the relationship between labor market freedom and labor force participation in the figure below. The figure shows the relationship between the Economic Freedom of North America’s 2013 labor market freedom score (x-axis) and the 2014 labor force participation rate for each state (y-axis).

As shown in the figure there is a positive relationship—more labor market freedom is associated with a higher LFP rate on average. States with lower freedom scores such as Mississippi, Kentucky and Alabama also had low LFP rates while states with higher freedom scores such as North Dakota, South Dakota and Virginia had higher LFP rates.

This is not an all-else-equal analysis and other variables—such as demographics and industry composition which I mentioned earlier—also play a role. That being said, state officials concerned about their state’s labor market should think about what they can do to increase labor market freedom—and economic freedom more broadly—in their state."