Month: November 2024

“Eberstadt’s work shows that the decline in work force participation of American men has been steady and ongoing since the 1960s. It has continued steadily during periods when immigration has been high, and when it has been low.
Other economic factors also fail to explain this steady decline, as Eberstadt wrote in an essay for National Affairs in 2020: “The tempo of workforce withdrawal appears to be almost completely unaffected by the tempo of national economic growth, which varied appreciably over this period. Even recessions—including the Great Recession—appear to have scarcely any impact on the trend. Likewise, the NAFTA agreement, China’s entry into the World Trade Organization, and other ‘disruptive’ trade events with major implications for the demand for labor in America do not stand out,” Eberstadt wrote in 2020.

In other words, it’s not the natcon boogeymen of free trade and immigration that are driving this outcome. Eberstadt has argued that a lack of educational options for low-income men is the primary cause, though a number of cultural changes have also played a role, including “family structure, government-benefit dependence, and mass incarceration.””

…

“Contrary to Vance’s claim, it does not seem like most of those men have been forced out of the work force by employers who are eager to “import somebody from Central America who’s going to work under the table for poverty wages.” Rather, they’ve left the work force for a variety of reasons. Some are in jail, some are disabled, some are caring for family members or otherwise unable to commit to a full-time job. The notion that America has 7 million able-bodied men who would be working if only they could find a job is misguided.

Vance’s argument also ignores other relevant details, like the fact that men’s participation in the labor force has increased over the past four years. It’s not what you’d expect to see if the Biden administration’s immigration policies were forcing working-age American men out of jobs.”

…

“”Inability to find a job has played a minimal role in men’s declining labor supply,” concluded Eberstadt’s colleague Scott Winship, a senior fellow at the American Enterprise Institute, in an essay published last month by Fusion. After reviewing decades of data about why nonworking men are still without a job, Winship concluded that “only about a quarter of the increase in prime-age men who were jobless for a full year was explained by men who wanted a job.””

…

“”The decline in work force participation among working-age men hasn’t been due to any deterioration in the labor market or economy,” Winship wrote in an email on Wednesday. “It mostly reflects rising school enrollment, increased responsibilities at home, earlier retirement, and especially increased receipt of disability benefits. The latter is primarily a problem with our disability policy rather than with our economy.””

https://reason.com/2024/10/17/j-d-vance-says-7-million-able-bodied-men-have-dropped-out-of-the-labor-force-where-are-they/