Given time, these developments could serve to lower natural gas prices in the United States significantly. Nonetheless, because of the higher costs of producing these supplies relative to the traditional sources of natural gas, as well as the elevated cost of other energy sources such as oil, natural gas prices seem unlikely to return to the level of the 1990s.
Although prime-age unemployment declined by less than half a percentage point over this period, that modest decline was accompanied by a 2 million increase in the prime-age labor force, which raised the prime-age EPOP ratio about 1½ percentage points. See, for example, Claire Cain Miller (2021), “‘Can’t Compete’: Why Hiring for Child Care Is a Huge Struggle,” New York Times, September 21, https://www.nytimes.com/2021/09/21/upshot/child-care.html.