The employment-to-population (EPOP) ratio is 3.2 percentage points short of its pre-pandemic level for prime-age workers, a group that is not affected by the elevated level of early retirements during the pandemic. Thus, as of June, we had closed between one-fourth and one-third of the employment shortfall relative to last December according to a variety of measures.
Although the EPOP ratio for Black individuals has improved more strongly than the overall ratio over the course of 2021, closing about 40 percent of the December gap, it remains more than 3 percentage points below its pre-pandemic level and more than 2 percentage points below the current level of the EPOP ratio for white individuals.