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"