American Idle: The Work Ethic Goes Out of Style

One in 3 working-age American men aren’t so much as looking for a job

By Jason Riley. Excerpts:

"1 in 3 men were neither working nor looking for a job in April. Among males 20 and older, the 66% labor-force participation rate is down from 73% in 2006"

"the work rate for men 20 and older fell by more than 13 percentage points between 1965 and 2015."

"the fraction of men without jobs of any sort in the broad twenty-to-sixty-four group went from 10 percent of the total to almost 22 percent"

"the percentage of wholly jobless prime-age men shot from 6 percent to nearly 16 percent"

"It results . . . from an unwillingness to search for work" 

"work rates and LFPRs for white men today are decidedly lower than they were for black men in 1965"

"labor participation rates of married black men twenty-five-to-fifty-four are higher than for never-married white men in the same age group"

"foreign-born males who come to the U.S. in search of work also tend to have higher work rates"

"Neither married men nor immigrants are stealing these jobs"

"The more likely culprit is a social safety net full of generous government benefits that allow men who won’t work to subsist"

"Welfare and disability programs . . . are easily gamed by design" 

"Good" union contracts lead to job losses

See JD Vance Courts Sean O’Brien and the Teamsters by Allysia Finley. Excerpts:

"In the 2023-24 election cycle, 92% of Teamsters PAC donations to federal candidates went to Democrats, as did 91% of the union’s contributions to party committees."

[there was] "a report in February accusing two former Teamster officials of treating the union credit card “as a blank check to permit them luxury living without limit,” including restaurant tabs for meals with friends topping $3,000."

"In 2023, Yellow Corp., one of the country’s largest trucking companies, sought financial concessions from the Teamsters to stay in business. Mr. O’Brien refused and tweeted an image of a gravestone reading “Yellow 1924-2023.” The company filed for bankruptcy, and 22,000 Teamsters lost their jobs.

After threatening UPS with a strike that summer, Mr. O’Brien won a deal that increased average compensation for full-time drivers over five years to $170,000 from $145,000, including zero healthcare premiums and as much as seven weeks of vacation. Rising labor costs prompted UPS to cut 34,000 nonmanagement jobs last year, with another 30,000 planned for this year."

 

Free market policies lowered poverty in Peru

See The Left Aims for an Andean Comeback by Mary Anastasia O’Grady. Excerpt:

"Peru’s shift over the past 20 years toward policies that support open markets, private initiative and macroeconomic stability has dramatically improved living standards. The share of Peruvians living below the poverty line fell to 25.7% in 2025 from 58.7% in 2004." 

Energy Markets Limit the Hormuz Shock

The world’s supply of fuel is much more diversified than it was during the energy crises of the 1970s

By Daniel Yergin. Excerpts:

"Today there is much more variety in world oil and natural gas than during the 1970s. The shale revolution has transformed the U.S. from the world’s largest importer of oil to the world’s largest producer of oil and natural gas and largest exporter of liquefied natural gas.

Overall, the Western Hemisphere now produces more oil than the Middle East did before the crisis. Canada is the world’s fourth-largest oil producer. Brazil produces four times as much oil as Venezuela; and in Guyana, where production began only seven years ago, output almost equals Venezuela’s. In Argentina’s Vaca Muerta region, shale oil production has grown sixfold since 2020. The current disruption will propel more oil and gas investment in the Western Hemisphere and Africa."

"Saudi Arabia built variety in the form of a pipeline system that now moves 7 million barrels of oil a day west to the Red Sea. Abu Dhabi built a pipeline looping around the Strait of Hormuz and plans to double capacity by 2027. France, which once depended on oil for electric generation, now relies mainly on nuclear. Japan led the development of the LNG industry to push oil out of its electric generation."

"Previous crises showed that markets themselves also contribute to energy security. They adjust faster than governments intervening to manage markets, which can make matters worse.

The U.S. gasoline lines of the 1970s weren’t the result of the crises themselves. Rather they were manufactured by government policies: price controls and clumsy, bureaucratic allocation systems that dispatched gasoline to well-supplied regions and yanked it from regions in short supply."

Global Warming or Just Getting Old?

A World Health Organization panel calls climate change a global health emergency but forgets to adjust its data for age

By Bjorn Lomborg. Excerpts:

"Heat mortality risk rises sharply with age, and Europe has aged dramatically. Since 1990, the share of Europeans over 70 has increased by 78%. Aging alone explains virtually all the observed increase in heat deaths."

"Any honest analysis of mortality in a rapidly aging society uses age-standardized death rates"

"Europe’s standardized heat-death risk has changed only marginally since 1990"

"the increase amounts to fewer than 850 additional heat deaths"

"Age-standardized data shows that cold death rates in Europe have declined by nearly 50% since 1990" 

Upward Mobility May Begin In a Smaller Backyard

See  How to Stop the Affluent From Rigging the Housing Market. NY Times editorial. Excerpt:

"The median house [in Massachusetts] costs almost $700,000, the third highest among states."

"The main reason is that Massachusetts has not built enough to keep up with its growing population and economy. Its municipalities tightly limit new home construction through a combination of onerous zoning and permitting rules."

"When it comes to housing policy, the state of Massachusetts is often a bystander, allowing town governments to impose classic “not in my backyard” policies."

"Many of the country’s strongest job markets are in coastal regions that have refused to build enough new housing." 

"The initiative [a ballot initiative to override stifling local housing rules] would prevent many towns from setting needlessly large minimums for lot sizes and effectively blocking the construction of middle-class homes."

"many Massachusetts towns require house lots to be at least 20,000 square feet, which is larger than most midsize supermarkets, like Trader Joe’s. Nationwide, only about one-fifth of homes are built on such large plots."

"The initiative would create a statewide minimum of 5,000 square feet, which is about the size of a basketball court, and bar towns from setting their own standards."

"The initiative would create a statewide minimum of 5,000 square feet, which is about the size of a basketball court, and bar towns from setting their own standards."

"Yet if the United States has any chance to reduce wealth inequality, increase economic mobility and help more people achieve the American dream, it needs significantly more housing. Blue states like Massachusetts need to be part of the solution."

"Andrew Mikula, the leader of the initiative, estimates that it would allow the construction of a few thousand new homes each year. That is far from enough new housing to meet demand, but it is a meaningful step. It should be accompanied by other changes, including allowing the construction of more multifamily homes, such as duplexes, and apartments. Other places, including Austin, Texas; Minneapolis; and Raleigh, N.C., have kept home prices down by allowing more multifamily homes than Massachusetts does."

"Unfortunately, the anger over high housing prices has also raised the possibility that Massachusetts voters will approve a different ballot proposal this fall that would be counterproductive: statewide rent control. It might sound like a solution, but it would discourage construction and renovations. Artificially low rents make it harder for developers to recoup the costs of building. Rent control has not solved the housing problems in New York City, and it will not solve them in Massachusetts. The national pattern is clear. The way to bring down housing costs is to increase housing supply. The initiative to create a statewide lot-size minimum would help accomplish this."

"Democrats . . . should address the largest cost for many families and stay true to the long progressive tradition that prioritizes upward mobility. They must bring down the high price of housing in the states they govern." 

The Environmental Defense Fund Makes It Harder to Reduce Emissions

The group has obstructed critical projects designed to move cleaner energy to consumers who need it

Letter to the WSJ. 

"I agree with the premise of Fred Krupp’s May 22 op-ed (“Natural Gas Is Escaping Into Thin Air”) that reducing methane emissions is an essential priority. It is, after all, the product that natural-gas producers are selling. Operators throughout the Appalachian Basin—America’s largest and least-methane intensive natural gas producing region—have invested billions to do exactly that.

But what Mr. Krupp fails to acknowledge is that many of the infrastructure constraints he laments are the direct result of opposition campaigns supported by his organization, the Environmental Defense Fund, and its allies.

While Mr. Krupp notes that energy companies “haven’t built the infrastructure” to bring gas to market, his organization has intervened against major pipeline projects like the Constitution Pipeline, which can safely transport abundant, low-emission natural gas into New York and New England. For nearly a decade, activist organizations have litigated, delayed and obstructed critical infrastructure projects designed to move cleaner American energy to consumers who need it most.

The result? New England consumers continue to face some of the nation’s highest winter energy prices while the region periodically turns to higher-emitting fuel oil and imported liquefied natural gas to meet demand. Imports from countries such as Trinidad and Tobago, for example, have a methane intensity four times higher than Pennsylvania-produced natural gas.

Constructive engagement on emissions is welcome. But the Environmental Defense Fund can’t simultaneously lecture industry about inadequate infrastructure while working to block the projects needed to improve reliability, lower emissions and strengthen American energy security. If we are serious about reducing emissions, the solution isn’t less natural gas—it is more modern infrastructure to deliver it efficiently and responsibly.

Jim Welty

President, Marcellus Shale Coalition"