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One in 3 working-age American men aren’t so much as looking for a job.
Maybe you’ve seen the old video clip on social media. It’s the one in which comedian Chris Rock explains how to tell good from bad neighborhoods based simply on who isn’t working in the middle of the day.
“If you’re in any neighborhood in America at 12:15 in the afternoon on a Wednesday and you see women with sweatpants on, coming out the gym, pushing babies, riding bikes,” Mr. Rock explains, “chances are, you’re in a nice neighborhood. There’s probably a Whole Foods nearby.” But if “you see men in sweatpants smoking cigarettes, hanging with their boys, lifting weights in the yard, riding children’s bicycles as their actual transportation, then you are in danger.”
Mr. Rock’s funny and insightful bit came to mind as I read last month’s jobs report, which showed that the share of American men in the labor force has dipped to record lows. According to the Department of Labor, 1 in 3 men were neither working nor looking for a job in April. Among males 20 and older, the 66% labor-force participation rate is down from 73% in 2006. Mr. Rock was highlighting the correlation between unemployment and crime, but public safety isn’t the only concern raised by a large population of idle young males.
Continue reading the entire piece here at the Wall Street Journal (paywall)
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Jason L. Riley is a senior fellow at the Manhattan Institute, a columnist at The Wall Street Journal, and a Fox News commentator. Follow him on Twitter here.