The Opioid Crisis and The Labor Market

There have been over a million drug overdose deaths in the United States since 1999. While this crisis is national in scope, there is considerable variation by both geography and subpopulation. One area of interest is in how changes in the labor market may be connected to increases in addiction and “deaths of despair” and, at the same time, how rising rates of drug use may be lowering overall labor force participation. This webinar recording from the University of Wisconsin at Madison’s Institute for Research on Poverty includes presentations on trends in the U.S. opioid crisis and overdose cases related to other drugs. The presenters also examined how differences in state-level policy responses to the crisis may be leading to different labor market outcomes, and how automation and other changes in manufacturing employment may be connected to increases in working-age mortality.