7 million able bodied men aren’t even looking for work. Is this the root of America’s economic crisis?

Photo above - Would you do this job? Grant would.

If anyone should know about crappy jobs, it would be Mike Rowe. On his show (now cancelled) “Dirty Jobs” he did everything from scuba diving inside a sewer pipe to artificial cow insemination. Mike doesn’t believe AI or bots will make Americans unemployed. It’s the “will to work". And he says it’s already happening. (see link at bottom).

Everybody knows the official government unemployment numbers are bogus. According to several sources, there's 6.8 million additional able bodied, adult men who aren’t even looking for work. And because they aren’t looking, they were dropped from the government's data. These guys alone would be enough to raise the unemployment rate from 4% to 6%. And that doesn’t even count “able bodied adult women who aren't mothers”.

My satiric tagline for the root of this problem was going to be “videogames”. But the problem runs much deeper. It involves legalized weed, mobile gambling apps, 132 NCAA college football games on TV each week, and Netflix binge watching. (“Thanks for the free crash pad in the basement and Xfinity hook up, mom. Can you make some more of those mini-pizzas on bagels?”)

I would additionally complain that Afghan ex-CIA operatives might be part of the problem, except that the dude who drove cross county to gun down random national guardsmen evidently DID have a job.

The “will to work” evidently isn’t lacking among lawn crews, roofers, Home Depot day workers, nannies, restaurant staff, and uber drivers who have migrated to America. Why the heck are we deporting THEM? Let's focus on the drug dealers, pimps, and car thieves, like we were told was going to happen last year.

If the able-bodied men (and childless women) of America all got halfway decent jobs, just imagine how may EV cars we could churn out. The affordable housing that could be constructed and occupied. The shorter wait times at hospital emergency rooms as overdoses and DUI crashes trend down. (I’m not being facetious here).

America’s economic crisis isn’t driven by some programmer training an AI system do google searches verbally. It’s all of the things that make students drop out of school and then keep them in their mom’s' basements.

I’m just sayin’ . . .



Mike Rowe warns the real crisis isn’t skills or AI but the ‘will to work.' As more 'able-bodied' men exit the workforce, what does America lose?