More than 900,000 people were absent from the workforce in 2015 due to opioid addiction, according to a study released March 27 by the American Action Forum, a Washington, D.C.-based center-right public policy advocacy group.
The research builds on a 2017 study conducted by Alan Krueger, PhD, an economics professor at Princeton (N.J.) University, which found opioid addiction could have contributed to a 20 percent decline in American workforce participation. The American Action Forum study applies this finding to data compiled by Bureau of Labor Statistics from 1999 to 2015.
"Of course the opioid crisis is a major health issue. The overdose fatalities by themselves suggest how big of a problem it is," said Ben Gitis, director of labor market policy at the American Action Forum and one of the study's co-authors, according to The Washington Post. "But it's also a major constraint on our economy."
Here are three study findings to know.
1. Opioid addiction kept approximately 919,400 individuals ages 25 to 54 out of the labor force in 2015.
2. From 1999 through 2015, opioid sales rose by 10 percent annually. Over the same period, labor force participation among prime-age workers declined from 84.1 percent to 80.9 percent, which resulted in a collective loss of more than 12 billion labor hours.
3. The lost labor hours resulted in a $702.1 billion loss in economic output, which slowed America's economic growth rate by 0.2 percent over the study period.
To read the full study, click here.
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