About 58.7% of the eligible US workforce is "officially" employed. That's a problem. Workforce participation rate is 63.2% and unemployment is 7.3%. College and high school kids aren't looking for jobs the way they used to, and the Baby Boomers are retiring, making this figure worse, though the Baby Boomer figure is more expected than the kids sitting at home. Still, the job market is weak, causing a great number of eligible people in this country to stop looking for work.
The only possible positive from this - a huge stretch to call it such - is that we know there's a black market for labor. Hopefully those people not looking for jobs are getting paid under the table.
http://money.cnn.com/2013/09/06/news/economy/labor-force-participation/index.html?source=cnn_bin