Valid point, bad data. The author is correct that labor force participation is as important to understanding the Trump phenomenon as the headline unemployment number, but his shocker figure - 32% of American men over 20 have left the labor market - is deeply misleading because it includes retirees and college students. Anyone with access to Google can look up the salient number, which is LFP for men 25-54, on the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics website. For men 25-54, the LFP was 88.2% in 2014, which is  2 points down from 90.5% in 2004 and 3.5 points down from the 91.7 figure in 1994, during Clinton presidency. Those are real, if modest declines, and while I didn't check state-by-state figures, they're probably higher in the Rust Belt. But it's a long, long way from 68%, which is the number the author gives. This, Canadian readers, is why you should always, always be suspicious when you see figures from the American Enterprise Institute, which is a right wing propaganda machine.