In the US, the ratio hit 71 per cent, before dropping back to 68 in the recession of the early 1980s and then rising steadily, apart from a small dip in the early 1990s. Australia's labour market institutions clearly coped much worse than those of the US with economic cycles. They were also far less successful at dealing with the entry of women into the workforce. The biggest difference is that we regulate employment relations far more than they do. If the point of such regulation is to benefit Australian workers, it is patently not working.
Australian workers earn less on average than American ones.
We have similar rates of working poor. On the US comparison, one million less Australians are workers than could be. I can think of about a million reasons.