We're wrapping up our look back at some of the defining moments of American economic history.

From Marketplace in Washington, I'm Kimberly Adams.

The past 50 years have transformed not just how Americans work, but who makes up the nation's workforce.

One major factor has been immigration.

Since 1970, the percentage of people in the U.S.

who were born abroad has more than tripled, according to the Pew Research Center.

The immigrant contribution to the U.S. economy is both towards the lower wage part of the

workforce, but also some of our major technological changes that we've experienced clearly immigrants play a

role.

Richard Fry is a labor economist and senior researcher at Pew.

He says women also made significant gains in labor force participation during the 1970s and 1980s.

But for men, labor force participation moved in the opposite direction,

partly due to the loss of many manufacturing jobs as rapid changes to technology reshaped the economy.

There was a severe recession in the early 80s, which was not insignificant,

but clearly the great financial crisis and the responses to it and a period of very low

interest rates throughout the 2010s, that's the one that I would point to.

The recovery from the Great Recession was slow, affecting a generation of workers.

Workers who later had to pivot again in response to the COVID-19 pandemic,

which shifted the understanding and requirements of how we get work done in the modern era.

Now, as businesses and workers began an even more rapid adjustment to artificial intelligence,

the American economy is set to adapt and change again, as it's been doing for the last

250 years. You can listen to our entire look back at some of the highlights of American

...