And here are some numbers on civilian labor participation rate (LPR) for men from 20 years old to put current events in perspective:
men:
Bush II: 76.6 to 75.9 in 2008, falling to 75.3 in Jan 2009
[-0.2% per year]
Obama: slowly going down to 71.7 (-4%) in 2016, consistently over whole 8 years, not just after recession
[-0.5% per year]
Trump: staying same until Feb 2020, -3% in 2 months March/April, +1% in 2 months, then stable
[-0.5% per year even with COVID]
Biden: same for 3 months
Summary: nobody made things better in last 20 years
Bush decreased LPR by 1%, 2008 recession by 1%, Obama by 4%, COVID by 2%,
Maybe it would be more precise to take men of prime working age, say, 30 to 50 and do it separately by race and education