How to Get American Men Back Into the Workforce
Rethink unemployment insurance and increase public investment in improving skills.
When it comes to prime-age men working, the U.S. compared unfavorably with other advanced economies, falling in the bottom half of the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development despite having the second-least-generous disability benefits in the group and nearly the shortest duration of unemployment insurance benefits.
.. The largest issue facing American men is not that they are rewarded for remaining in a recliner, but that they cannot find rewarding work. The bulk of the decline in employment has been for men with a high-school diploma or less, who have seen their employment rates fall from 97% in 1964 to 83% today. This has coincided with a decline in their relative wages: High-school grads in the 1970s earned two-thirds what their college-educated counterparts took home. Today it’s around half.
.. Forty-four percent of the prime-age men who have left the labor force are on pain medication, according to Princeton economist Alan Krueger. The Council of Economic Advisers recently estimated this epidemic is costing the U.S. economy $500 billion annually. Spending even a tiny fraction of that sum on treatment, counseling and prevention could be a profitable investment. Cutting Medicaid would make it harder for those suffering from addiction to receive the treatment necessary to overcome it and get back to work.