According to Wilbur Ross, who was in office during Donald Trump’s first term, American men have lost their work ethic and increasingly feel entitled to live comfortable lives without putting in any effort.
Ross, the Wall Street investor once dubbed the “King of Bankruptcy,” said younger generations had been “coddled” by growing up in a wealthy society, weakening the drive to work that underpinned previous generations and jeopardizing long-term economic growth.
“It used to be the mantra for every young person: Work hard and you can progress and do better than your parents,” Ross said. “It never crossed anyone’s mind not to work, at least not anyone I knew. There’s been a complete change in that.”
He argued that a combination of government benefits and parents’ wealth created a sense of entitlement. “I think all of these (welfare) programs, as well as the relative wealth of the parents of today’s generation, have created the feeling that they have a right to a nice lifestyle regardless of whether they do any meaningful work,” he said.
“If you are an able-bodied person who is not even willing to look for a job, why should you be successful?”
Overall labor force participation among Americans ages 25 to 54, the so-called prime-age workforce, fell sharply during the pandemic but has since recovered to 83.8 percent, one of the highest levels in nearly a quarter century. However, Ross and other economists say these headlines obscure a profound long-term change among men.
The labor force participation of prime-age men has been structurally declining since the 1960s, while women’s participation has risen to record levels. The divergence is particularly pronounced among younger employees.
Analysis from the Brookings Institution shows that labor force participation among 25-year-old men has declined in every generation since 1969. For men born in the late 1990s, labor force participation at that age is about 84 percent, compared to 93 percent for those born about 45 years earlier.
In contrast, the participation of women of the same age has steadily increased and rose from 66.3 percent to 76.6 percent in the same period.
Ross said the trend among men is particularly damaging to the economic outlook. “I think there are a lot of men who just don’t want to work that hard,” he said.
He added that labor force participation is one of the three key drivers of economic growth. “One is the growth of the working-age population – that’s something you have no control over in the short term. The other two are productivity and labor force participation. And of the two, labor force participation is probably the more important right now.”
Economists have pointed to several factors in the decline in men’s labor force participation, including the loss of industrial jobs, the increase in traditionally female-dominated positions in the service sector, higher incarceration rates that leave many men with criminal records, the expansion of disability benefits and persistent weaknesses in education and skills.
Together, they warn, these forces risk leading to a growing cohort of men being excluded from work – with long-term consequences for productivity, public finances and social cohesion.
