Depends on the sector. For example, in California's large-scale wildfire responses, forced prison labor in firefighting acts as an important auxiliary force. https://www.commonwealmagazine.org/los-angeles-firefighters-...

In Arkansas, agricultural work accounted for 17% of all prison labor assignments in 2021. https://www.prisonlegalnews.org/media/publications/Captive_L...

That doesn't answer at all.

17% of prison assignments might be 3 assignments for all I know.

I found a number in your document: "...1.2 million people incarcerated in state and federal prisons, over 65 percent work."

That's 780,000.

And there's 163 million working folks in the USA.

Prisoners power .4% of the economy.

The original context here was human rights in China, and what we see is that the US both has far higher prison population per capita, and that it is being as slave labor which is a significant factor in certain sectors of the economy.

Your whole argument about the percentage overall economy is nonsensical because most of the US economy is not actual productive economy. It's ephemeral stuff like service industry, entertainment, and software development. Obviously, you're not going to force prisoners to go on Joe Rogan podcasts. But when it comes actually producing things, 17% of the industry being done by slave labor is obviously very significant.

The original context was this:

> oh please, the US economy literally runs on slavery

Also

> 17% of the industry being done by slave labor is obviously very significant.

That's not what the stat says. It says 17% of the prison labor did that job, not that 17% of the labor for that job was prisoners.

Here's the quote for ya:

"...agricultural work constitutes a greater percentage of work assignments, such as in Arkansas, where 17 percent of job assignments for incarcerated people were in agricultural work in 2021."

But tell me again how I'm nonsensical.

The amount of mental gymnastics you're doing to justify the amount of SLAVE LABOR in the US is truly incredible. And couple that with one of the highest rates of incarceration in the world, that really tells us all we need to know about the state of human rights.