“Every time I see it, that number blows my mind.”
Erik Hurst, an economist at the University of Chicago, studies low employment levels among young men – millennials who did not attend college – and he came across one “staggering” statistic.
In 2015, 22 percent of lower-skilled men (those without a college degree) age 21 to 30 had not worked at all during the prior twelve months.
“Think about that for a second,” Hurst said in a recent speech reported on by The Atlantic. Twentysomething male high-school grads used to be the most dependable working cohort in America. Today one in five are now essentially idle. The employment rate of this group has fallen 10 percentage points just this century, and it has triggered a cultural, economic, and social decline. “These younger, lower-skilled men are now less likely to work, less likely to marry, and more likely to live with parents or close relatives,” he said.
The Atlantic’s Derek Thompson continues the story:
So, what are are these young, non-working men doing with their time? Three quarters of their additional leisure time is spent with video games, Hurst’s research has shown. And these young men are happy – or at least, they self-report higher satisfaction than this age group used to, even when its employment rate was 10 percentage points higher.
It is a relief to know that one can be poor, young, and unemployed, and yet fairly content with life; indeed, one of the hallmarks of a decent society is that it can make even poverty bearable. But the long-term prospects of these men may be even bleaker than their present. As Hurst and others have emphasized, these young men have disconnected from both the labor market and the dating pool.
They are on track to grow up without spouses, families, or a work history. They may grow up to be rudderless middle-aged men, hovering around the poverty line, trapped in the narcotic undertow of cheap entertainment while the labor market fails to present them with adequate working opportunities.
According to the Pew Research Center, about 40 percent of 18- to 31-year-old men and 20 percent of 25- to 34-year-old men live in their parents’ basements or their childhood bedrooms. Those numbers are significantly lower among women in this age group. And these numbers have been trending upward, The Fiscal Times reports, even during the post-2008 recovery.
This aimless bloc is the new economic underclass in America.
One-third of the 30 million men in this age group are not employed, and many who are work only part-time or in low-wage jobs. Two-thirds have never married. By comparison, only 1 in 5 Generation Xers weren’t working and two-fifths of Baby Boomers weren’t married at comparable ages.
