“The opioid crisis and depressed labor-force participation are now intertwined"

Nearly half of these men “take pain medication of a daily basis, and in nearly two-thirds of these cases they take prescription pain medication,” Krueger wrote. “Labor force participation has fallen more in areas where relatively more opioid pain medication is prescribed.”

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Asked whether painkillers are the reason they aren’t working — or whether these men turn to painkillers as a result of prolonged unemployment — Krueger had an answer at the ready.

“It is very likely some of both,” Krueger wrote Friday in an email to NBC News.

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