> Unless it killed laborers disproportionately, and spared non-laborers
This is actually highly likely, given the facts we know.
1) It is highly transmissible when people are in close quarters for longer than a few minutes
2) Many businesses forced their employees to continue working with no PPE, no adequate ventilation, and no paid sick time
Combine these things, and you get a very high likelihood of increased transmission among the most vulnerable of laborers—which thus increases their likelihood of death in proportion.
It's obviously an issue for the total labor force.
That said, >75% of deaths occured in 65+ [1].
~200k*.61 = ~122k people in a workforce of 165M is a rounding error.
.61 = labor force participation rate [2]
Additionally, almost 85% of deaths occured in 55+, and participation for 55-65 is already pretty low (~38%). Articles would've stated the obvious (that people died) if it was a major cause. Almost 3M dropped out of the labor force. Deaths probably account for less 4% of that.
[1] https://www.statista.com/statistics/1191568/reported-deaths-...
[2] https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/CIVPART