Opioid Use and the Labor Force

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According to a new Brookings paper by Princeton economist Alan Krueger, “The increase in opioid prescriptions from 1999 to 2015 could account for about 20 percent of the observed decline in men’s labor force participation (LFP) during that same period.” Other findings include:

  • Regional variation in opioid prescription rates across the U.S. is due in large part to differences in medical practices, rather than varying health conditions. Pain medication is more widely used in counties where health care professionals prescribe greater quantities of opioid medication, with a 10 percent increase in opioid prescriptions per capita is associated with a 2 percent increase in the share of individuals who report taking a pain medication on any given day. When accounting for individuals’ disability status, self-reported health, and demographic characteristics, the effect is cut roughly in half, but remains statistically significant.
  • Over the last 15 years, LFP fell more in counties where more opioids were prescribed. Krueger reaches this conclusion by linking 2015 county-level opioid prescription rates to individual level labor force data in 1999-2001 and 2014-16. For more on the relationship between prescription rates and labor force participation rate on the county-level, visit these maps.

Krueger also found that “nearly half of prime age men who are not in the labor force take pain medication on a daily basis, and that two-thirds of those men—or about 2 million—take prescription pain medication on a daily basis.” Furthermore, “two-thirds of men not in the labor force and taking pain medication used Medicaid, Medicare, or Veterans Affairs health insurance to purchase prescription pain medication, with the largest group relying on Medicaid.” In short, “Krueger’s analysis reinforces past research in finding that the overall decline in LFP since 2007 is primarily due to an aging population and ongoing trends that preceded the recession, for example increased school enrollment of young workers.”

Check it out.