> According to the latest monthly jobs report from the Bureau of Labor Statistics, "work rates" for American men in October 2019 stood very close to their 1939 levels, as reported in the 1940 U.S. Census. Despite some improvement since the end of the Great Recession, Great Depression-style work rates are still characteristic today for the American male, both for those of "prime working age" (defined as ages 25 to 54) and for the broader 20 to 64 group.

The premise of this article is based on this statistic. Oddly enough, no definition of "work rate" is given. After some quick searching, I didn't find anything accessible, either.

This may be significant. Is a full-time "investor" included in the count? What about a programmer working on a startup? What about some other kind of self-employed contractor?

There are many ways a person might not show up in a tally called "work rate." Many (all?) of them have become a lot easier to pull off over the last 20 years.