WHITHER PRODUCTIVITY?
Young American men are working far less than they did as recently as a decade-and-a-half ago … the latest sign of the United States’ ongoing economic malaise.
According to a study published by the National Bureau of Economic Research (NBER), “younger men, ages 21 to 30, exhibited a larger decline in work hours over the last fifteen years than older men or women.”
On average, men in this age group worked 12 percent fewer hours in 2015 than they did in 2000 – while 15 percent of them didn’t work at all (twice as many as in 2000). Also, thirty-five percent of young men now live with their parents or a relative – up from 12 percent in 2000.
Thank you George W. Bush and Barack Obama…
The era of big “Republican” and even bigger liberal government – pursued over the past decade-and-a-half by these presidents and their respective congresses – has clearly created a crisis of industry in this country.
“The results of (the) study could suggest that, instead of actively seeking work in an economy with millions of open jobs, young men are choosing to stay at home and play video games,” reporter Robert Donachie of The Daily Caller noted.
This is another reason why we focus on labor participation as the key employment metric. Unlike the unemployment rate – which tracks a segment of workers within the labor force – the labor participation rate tracks the size of the workforce itself (as a percentage of the nation’s working-age population). That makes it a far better indicator of the extent to which people are gainfully employed.
Anyway you slice this number, though, it represents an ongoing societal failure – both in terms of dis-incentivizing productivity as well as incentivizing dependency.
Seriously … how long does a country that punishes work while rewarding laziness expect to sustain itself?
What do you think? Is America’s “laziest generation” really lazy? Or are they victimized by a lack of opportunity? Is it both?
Vote in our poll …
Are America's jobless men lazy or is there a lack of opportunity in our country?
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