Report: 15% of Fairfield County Men in Prime Working Years Not in Labor Force

Written by Tom Edathikunnel.

The number of men in their prime working years who are not non-employed has tripled in the United States since 1968, according to an interactive study by The New York Times.

Nationwide, 16 percent of men in the prime working ages of 25 to 54 who are without work. That’s either because they’re officially unemployed or outside the labor force, meaning they’re disabled, retired, in school or taking care of a family.

In Fairfield County, 15 percent of men in that age bracket are not working. The rates are higher in Hartford and New Haven counties (20 percent each) and in Tolland and New London counties (18 percent each), but Windham County in the northeast corner of the state has the highest percentage — 22 percent. Two Connecticut counties have a lower rate: Litchfield (14 percent) and Middlesex (13 percent).

The rate isn’t so high everywhere. Employment rates among men in some places — the affluent areas of Manhattan, for example — approach 90 percent, approaching the rates of the worker friendly 1950s and 1960s.

The interactive data found in the Times, collected by the American Community Survey from 2009-2013 estimates, allows readers to examine non-employment rates in every census county across the country.

Click here to see the rates of every county in the country.