Perhaps worse, many of those taking painkillers still said they experienced pain daily. Recently, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has reported that these drugs are far less effective and much more addictive than previously thought.

The connection between chronic joblessness and painkiller dependency is hard to quantify. Mr. Krueger and other experts cannot say which came first: the men’s health problems or their absence from the labor force. Some experts suspect that frequent use of painkillers is a result of being out of work, because people who have no job prospects are more likely to be depressed, become addicted to drugs and alcohol and have other mental health problems. Only about 2 percent of the men say they receive workers’ compensation benefits for job-related injuries. Some 25 percent are on Social Security disability; 31 percent of those receiving benefits have mental disorders and the rest have other ailments, according to an analysis by the Urban Institute.

While it’s hard to generalize across a large group of people, it’s clear that job market changes can have significant health effects on the labor force. Increased automation and the offshoring of jobs have hit men with less than a college education particularly hard. Add to that soaring levels of prescription opioid addiction in the general population, and the result of the Krueger study becomes less surprising.