On the sixth Father’s Day of the Obama Administration, it’s time to review how America’s fathers have been doing in the Obama Economy.  Overall, the answer is not well.  For example, as economist Heidi Shierholz of the liberal Economic Policy Institute recently admitted:  “Men…are still nearly 700,000 jobs below their pre-recession employment peak, and given growth in the potential male labor force, are 3.7 million jobs down.”

The picture is even worse for men at the beginning and middle of the employment years – that is, those between the ages of 25 and 54.  The following charts provide more details about their employment conditions as millions of them prepare to celebrate Father’s Day with their sons and daughters this Sunday. 

• Figure 1 shows how overall employment among men in their prime working years remains well below its pre-recession level.  At 50.8 million, employment among men between 25 and 54 remains over three and a half million below the pre-recession peak of 54.5 million.
• Figures 2a and 2b show how even for men who are working, increasingly it is in a part-time and not a full-time job, a trend that many believe Obamacare will make worse. 
• Figure 3 shows how a record share of men in their prime working years are not even trying to find work, now five years after the official end of the 2007-09 recession.  Today, a record one in nine men between 25 and 54 is not participating in the labor force at all.

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