It was discussed in the context of a crisis of male unemployment and withdrawal from the workforce, especially amongst prime-age men, which has been occurring for decades, and the social impact of this trend.
It's a problem that's been hiding in plain sight for almost two generations we've been seeing this uh previously invisible crisis of the collapse of work for men mainly driven by an exit from the work...
— Episode: Stories of Week 10/2: Nuclear Threats, H...
Episode: Stories of Week 10/2: Nuclear Threats, Herschel Wa...
It was discussed in the context of a crisis of male unemployment and withdrawal from the workforce, especially amongst prime-age men, which has been occurring for decades, and the social impact of this trend.
It's a problem that's been hiding in plain sight for almost two generations we've been seeing this uh previously invisible crisis of the collapse of work for men mainly driven by an exit from the workforce of prime age men of 25 to 54 year olds let's say it's been almost a straight line up from 65 to the present
we've got more than seven million prime age guys neither working nor looking for work for every guy who's unemployed there over four who were neither working nor looking for work today and that is why male work rates are now kind of at about 1937 levels we have a depression scale problem of work for men on our hands right now
as far as i can tell there's absolutely nothing good that comes out of this uh it leads to this huge gap in our workforce means uh slower economic growth it also means bigger income and wealth gaps in our society it probably means more dependence upon social programs and social welfare over the long term more pressure on fragile families less social mobility less involvement in society and you know trust in institutions there's just you do the 360 there is nothing good that comes out of this
i mean maybe because the guys are too often dying deaths of despair and they're not burning cars or seeming to be a menace to society
we need i think to have a work first principle in our social welfare programs that might turn out to be more expensive but even if it were more expensive i think the consequences would be better for our society and we should be shining a spotlight on our invisible ex-con population