How Do You Lose 10 Million Men?

The Atlantic is worried. Why should the reader care? Because The Atlantic is concerned about the 10 million missing men in the American Economy. It might be hard to believe that there are missing men in an economy with pre-recession unemployment levels. While the unemployment reports are good news for markets and the media, the labor participation rate is alarming. That number tells us, in real terms, of those available to participate in the workforce and how many are engaged in the workforce. There will never be total participation due to retirement, disability, and self-employed people. However, the vast majority of people should register in the labor force. You can’t even account for the loss by looking at disability numbers. Disability is difficult to get and does not explain the men who simply aren’t working. However, these 10 million missing men aren’t too hard to find. A different understanding of the economy is required to find them.

The Atlantic is worried because the labor participation rate is low when you look at prime wage-earning males between 25 and 55. It hasn’t been lower since 1978. Prime-age males usually represent the vast majority of the labor force. In decades past, they enjoyed good wages and used them to be an economic powerhouse. These men bought houses, cars, and raised children. That economic activity rippled out to the entire economy. It has been no secret that it has been a long and slow recovery. This is particularly true in hard-hit Rust Belt states and non-educated white males. However, even that doesn’t account for 10 million missing men. In a country of 351 million people, that is a large number of men and a substantial economic opportunity sitting on the sidelines. The Atlantic spent pages wringing its hands about where these men have gone. It’s far worse than the 50 Trillion dollars of capital sitting on the sidelines.

It’s Time to be Worried

The Atlantic has a right to worry. The loss of these prime-age working men is devastating to the overall economy. When men aren’t working, there is a loss of the $2.13 of economic activity they generate, and there’s devastation to communities. Households don’t form; children are left without fathers, and the divorce rate skyrockets. There’s also a cost in life. The suicide rate is far higher for men than women, and joblessness only exacerbates this trend.

There are potent anecdotes as well. Some notable video stories are about men who lose their jobs and fall into homelessness. It has become a familiar story. Homelessness affects men at more excellent rates than women; 51% of the homeless population is male, and that is just the number of men they can count. The actual number could be far higher.

The labor participation rate was only 63.2% in 2019. That means that of Americans ages 18 to 65 who are eligible to work, 37% of them aren’t working. That is tragic all by itself. The number for men only recently rebounded to 91% early in 2019. It was far lower for most of the decade, generating articles analyzing why men weren’t showing up to work.

One need not look far for men who are chronically underemployed or unemployed. These men jump from job to job as they are available. For those in small and medium-sized towns, the story is direr. The factory jobs that once employed these men are long gone. After a decade of bouncing between retail and food, many young men begin their 30s unhappy and dissatisfied with their job prospects and are desperately searching for something—anything else that can provide them with a modicum of dignity in their work.

A job loss can be fatal to their whole career for older men. Even in a growing industry like technology, a man who gets laid off in his 40s or 50s, the best salary years, will be hard-pressed to find another job in his industry, even if he is up to date on the latest languages. When I first moved to Seattle, I had an Uber driver who had done 20 years with Microsoft. He drove 12 hours a day for one and one-half years because he could not land an interview.

What’s Wrong with the Economy?

An economy that’s doing as well as it’s supposed to be doing well should not have this large a gap for this many workers. Since the Great Recession, the economy has done reasonably well. GDP recovered in 2011, and the stock market has boomed. The employment rate has fallen to what government agencies would consider full employment below 5%. However, when you speak to many Americans, they just don’t feel like the economy has recovered the same way for them as it has for major corporations and the 1%. That feeling isn’t a wrong one; it’s an accurate reflection of a broken economy that advantages owners of capital over those who derive their wealth from labor.

Wages

Wages in the modern economy have been suppressed since 1977. Before that, productivity and wages increased in lockstep. In a recent survey, CNBC has reported and quoted by Congresswoman Ocasio-Cortez that 62% of jobs in the United States cannot support the workers who hold them. This has held many Americans back and has caused the rate of household debt to increase steadily. However, wages aren’t the only problem; the economy has changed, too, adversely affecting men.

Automation

One of the most significant economic stories of the past 40 years is the rise of automation. Modern technology has brought this into our everyday lives, but workers have been subjected to these increases in efficiency since the 1970s. Automation was reasonably narrow at first. Automation started in major manufacturing with machines that could speed up production. Devices that could weld quickly were the first. Then, there are machines to paint and do other jobs. Slowly over time, those jobs were gone, never to return. Thanks to the personal computer and the internet, even white-collar workers have seen jobs disappear. Steel manufacturing once ruled the Midwest in what is commonly referred to as “The Rust Belt.” Most of those plants and mills are gone, yet the United States’ steel output remains at 1,000 million tons per year. That’s the sign of automation. Not all the jobs left for China; some simply disappeared because a machine could do it better and faster.

In the past, this has been good news for workers. Indeed, the automobile unemployed several people. Mechanization of farming unemployed farm workers. There were other jobs, often that paid more, that were available. In this next wave of automation, which will reduce employment in warehousing, transportation, delivery, and manufacturing, there may not be enough jobs to absorb the displaced workers. There are some remedies to this problem. One of them is job retraining; however, it has to include job retraining that works with the economy of where people live. Silicon Valley has attempted some training programs. One such program in Arkansas sought to train people to gain simple skills they could sell online. The program ended after two years when the difficulties in helping these people were simply too great to overcome. Many of the people in the program lacked literacy skills, and many had not graduated high school. Still, others had hardly used a computer regularly, leaving them few computer or internet skills. The program pivoted to a different set of skills, and the workers made the new trash dumpsters for their local town. It was something that they could do. It didn’t require computer or reading skills but allowed them to be productive. This is the kind of job retraining that is essential.

Lack of Respectable Jobs

Another story that garners little sympathy in this modern economy is the idea of a respectable job. Another “lost” man I’ve met has been in and out of retail and other service jobs for most of his adult life. He stays at a job until he can’t take it anymore and then moves on. Why is that? His complaint was simple. “I’d just like some respect. No one respects you as a person in those jobs, they treat you like shit, and I’m tired of being treated like that.”

Not everyone is cut out to work in service and retail jobs. However, the post-2008 recession economy has seen a steep rise in these jobs as the industries of the past move offshore to Mexico, China, and elsewhere. Making sure everyone can have a job that maintains their dignity, at least somewhat, is an integral part of having a working society. The mental health of working people is improved when they feel as if their jobs have value and they can gain respect and dignity from those jobs. For men, current service jobs and growing industries, like healthcare, do not offer much dignity and respect. Often, news stories will be published that ask

More men aren’t going into healthcare, a traditionally female occupation, save for doctors. The answer is obvious: respect and dignity. Creating jobs where fulfillment and care can be achieved is a way for the economy to move forward and pull the lost 10 million men back into the workforce.

How Do They Survive?

These 10 million men live on unemployment, working for cash under the table, hustling on the streets by selling metal, or doing odd jobs for business owners. Many of these men are past unemployment collection or have not been in a position where they would get that kind of help. They just get by. Many people would be surprised at the economy, cash-based, that still exists for these kinds of people.

It doesn’t take much to find a few men who have not been gainfully employed in some time. Another example, I’ll call him David, is a painter who works under the table whenever this painting company needs him. He’s talented and should have a great job. The Labor Department does not even count him because he’s working for cash and is unreported. His income varies from month to month, leaving him on the economic sidelines with little stability. He’s 60 and has plenty of long-term health issues and the chronic pain that stems from them. He can’t afford any kind of health insurance and lives on the healthcare system’s sidelines.

I’ll refer to another man working in this secondary economy as Jacob; he’s a word-of-mouth worker. He knows some people, and when they need something, they call him. They call him when things need cleaned, hauled, or otherwise looked after. Until recently, he’s always had a job of some sort. He’s paid cash and is basically off the economic grid. He will most likely work until he dies.

Then, those men choose to retire on their savings, social security, or pension and retirement. This man, who I’ll call Harry, is the type of person that Trump supporters would readily identify as a “Good American.” He was a union electrician for 30 years. However, thanks to the recession, he took off-union electrician jobs and decided to move to low-cost Idaho to reduce living costs and retire early with his wife. They pooled their retirement funds and decided that was their best option. He was a cash-paid, independent contractor and unemployed for four years before making this decision. He’s very frustrated with the economy. He never intended to retire at 58, but the economy just didn’t seem to have much room for him anymore.

Where Did These Men Go?

They are missing because the economy, as it is growing in the areas where that’s happening, doesn’t need them. Economic growth is happening in technology, administration, education, and healthcare. Construction even lags behind these fields. At the lower levels, these fields tend not to be male-dominated and often require education that many men do not have and may find hard to acquire without massive amounts of debt. It’s easy to demonize people who make bad decisions or have lousy degrees, but this problem reaches a far larger population than the people these articles

are written about. Many may complain about anthropology majors and their lack of job opportunities, but the men most affected by this economic reality don’t have degrees of any kind. They are solidly working class.

It is shocking to think that the economy can’t provide for everyone as large as it is. This trend aligns with the rising productivity and lack of workers that is common in the modern economy, and automation will only make this worse. Andrew Yang is spearheading the conversation on universal basic income. That conversation is becoming an essential part of political discourse. Some people may never be able to return to gainful employment. People sense that things are not suitable for them anymore, and they have voted for the person to address this issue head-on: Donald Trump.

Voting for a Better Economy

Trump voters might have voted for less trade and more domestic jobs, but the sad reality is that many of the positions formerly occupied by these missing men are gone, and they aren’t coming back. They often simply don’t exist. Trump voters have one thing right: they are the key to the recovery. However, rather than hoping for good-paying jobs, it’s time to think about how the economy is structured and how best to bring people back into the mainstream workforce. There should be an easy to access and inexpensive pathway to job retraining. Job retraining must include people who might need time to brush up on outdated skills and maybe even find ways to move away from rural towns and toward cities where jobs are plentiful.

It’s a sad thing, but the age of well-paid manufacturing jobs that enabled people to have an excellent quality of life is simply no longer the case. Indeed, even low-end, white-collar jobs are in danger. Men may flee to these jobs, but the economic march is right behind them. Within this process, we have lost 10 million men in our labor participation rate. This has staggering economic consequences, and there are very few people talking about real policy solutions to these pressing problems. One of the great mistakes of the Obama presidency was the lack of natural solutions for working people.

There is a certain amount of sexism within this as well. Most people don’t want to bend over backward to help men. Unless gay or black, men are not a glamorous marginalized group worthy of help. To say that we need to do something dynamic for heterosexual white men is a difficult sell in many parts of the country. Indeed, this is why so many of them voted for Trump. It was their way of making their voice heard to help themselves. Not only has the straight, white male suffered repudiation socially with the rise of Black Lives Matter and LGBTQA visibility, but economically, he is more lost than ever before. The country he was promised simply no longer exists. While we cannot quickly solve the social struggles, economic efforts are easier to solve with intelligent policy.

These 10 million men need not be consigned to the dust bin. Policymakers can and should take steps to make sure that many more people are employed by jobs that can pay them a living wage. There is no reason to give up on men, especially those who did not seek higher education. This moment requires economic investment in America and Americans. It requires government action to put these men back to work.