Bill Dawg's Journal: the American male is fucked

From TFA (paywalled unless coming from Google; take the first link, to the WSJ):

Labor Day is an appropriate moment to reflect on a quiet catastrophe: the collapse, over two generations, of work for American men. During the past half-century, work rates for U.S. males spiraled relentlessly downward. America is now home to a vast army of jobless men who are no longer even looking for workâ"roughly seven million of them age 25 to 54, the traditional prime of working life.

Not sure tho what this "prime" distinction is. The conventional retirement age being 65, why isn't it 18 to 64? It's not like there being men 55-64 who need to work but can't find it is somehow okay. Because "prime".