Skip to:
  1. Main navigation
  2. Main content
  3. Footer
Working Paper

Opioids and Post-COVID Labor-Force Participation

At the onset of COVID-19, U.S. labor-force participation dropped by about 3 percentage points and remained below pre-pandemic levels three years later. Recovery varied across states, with slower rebounds in those more affected by the pre-pandemic opioid crisis, as measured by age-adjusted opioid overdose death rates. An event study shows that a one-standard-deviation increase in pre-COVID opioid death rates corresponds to a 0.9 percentage point decline in post-COVID labor participation. The result is not driven by differences in overall health between states. The effect of prior opioid exposure had a more significant impact on individuals without a college degree. The slow recovery in states with more opioid exposure was characterized by an increase in individuals who are not in the labor force due to disability.

Working Papers of the Federal Reserve Bank of Cleveland are preliminary materials circulated to stimulate discussion and critical comment on research in progress. They may not have been subject to the formal editorial review accorded official Federal Reserve Bank of Cleveland publications. The views expressed in this paper are those of the authors and do not represent the views of the Federal Reserve Bank of Cleveland or the Federal Reserve System.


Suggested Citation

Chiocchio, Francesco, Jeremy Greenwood, Nezih Guner, and Karen Kopecky. 2025. “Opioids and Post-COVID Labor-Force Participation.” Federal Reserve Bank of Cleveland, Working Paper No. 25-13. https://doi.org/10.26509/frbc-wp-202513