Politicians from both parties commonly say that the nation needs to win back manufacturing jobs lost to overseas relocation.
Despite their ideological differences, both President Joe Biden and President Donald Trump before him praised infrastructure and its capacity to create jobs in construction and related sectors.
Yet an unexpected hurdle has impeded these ambitions: finding enough workers.
When Biden’s infrastructure law passed in November 2021, construction was already grappling with some 500,000 vacant positions.
Since then, the shortage has swelled by another 150,000 positions.
And while America has about 1.4 million fewer industrial jobs than it did 20 years ago, the Labor Department estimates that manufacturers have roughly 750,000 unfilled positions.
Behind these shortages is a steady increase in adult Americans not working, a number that exploded during the COVID lockdowns.
The labor-force participation rate started a somewhat erratic descent after peaking in 2000 at 67.3%, plummeting to a low of 62.4% of adults in 2015.
It fell further to just 60.8% during the pandemic.
Today, more than 100 million adults are not working or looking for work, up from about 95 million pre-pandemic.
Expanding government benefits correspond with the declines.
Two programs in particular, Social Security Disability Insurance and Supplemental Security Income (for non-working adults without income), support more and more Americans.
The disability rolls have shot from 1.5 million in 1970 to 7.6 million today, due in large part to a relaxation of medical criteria enabling more workers to qualify for disability, including for mental-health and addiction issues.
Federal drives to combat fraud have failed amid prolonged legal disputes.
Extended government jobless benefits during the pandemic also encouraged workforce dropouts.
Federal programs provided supplemental unemployment benefits and direct payments to families — and the longer individuals are jobless, the more likely they are to stay that way.
A mid-2022 survey by the US Chamber of Commerce found that nearly a quarter of unemployed respondents said government aid had led them to not look for work.
Even when economies were reopening by mid-2022, ⅔ of the unemployed said they were only “somewhat active” or “not very active” in seeking new work.
COVID lockdowns intensified the social troubles that detach people from work.
Drug use went up sharply: The percentage of workers testing positive for drugs hit a 10-year high in 2021, according to Quest Diagnostics.
Employers are rightly wary of such workers.
Employees testing positive for marijuana were involved in 55% more industrial accidents, suffered 85% more injuries, and had 75% higher absenteeism than other workers, a National Institute on Drug Abuse report found.
Skyrocketing addiction rates for deadlier drugs like opioids are behind yet more workers leaving the job market.
Between 9% and 26% of the surge in individuals exiting the workforce during COVID could be attributed to substance abuse of some kind, a 2022 paper estimated.
Widespread mental-health challenges are also shrinking the pool of the employable.
In 2020, mental-health issues rendered 29% of federal disability beneficiaries — about 2.4 million people — incapable of employment.
Among them, 1.4 million struggled with depression or psychotic disorders.
Meanwhile, many young Americans have simply checked out of the labor force.
One study estimated that 14% of 25-year-olds aren’t working or even looking for a job — a rate about double that of baby boomers at a comparable age.
Research consistently demonstrates that those engaged in work lead happier lives than the nonworking — so the employment crisis is far more than a problem of economics alone.
What can be done?
First, let’s end government disincentives to work.
Work requirements for government benefits help get people back in the labor force, as the successful welfare-to-work movement of the 1990s showed.
Similarly, so-called early-intervention initiatives could reduce the number of people going on permanent disability.
These programs help the temporarily disabled get back to work before they become permanently unemployed — aiding those unable to perform physically demanding jobs, say, to transition to less arduous careers.
America’s schools once effectively readied the country’s young people for adult life, including trade and technical careers, but the college-for-all movement undermined these programs.
The few schools that have restarted them, sometimes in tandem with local businesses, are producing highly trained, well-paid young workers.
The escalating use of marijuana amid widespread legalization has correlated with a marked rise in debilitating psychosis.
Perhaps we should rethink those lax new laws: Like the Hippocratic principle in medicine, the foremost tenet of governance should be to avoid causing harm.
Efforts to integrate ex-convicts into the workforce are challenging but worthy.
We need strategies that encourage businesses to offer them opportunities.
One policy worth exploring is “crime and safety insurance” for businesses, mitigating potential losses incurred from hiring ex-cons.
Work is deeply ingrained in the human experience.
All of us are beneficiaries of generations who toiled and left enduring legacies through their labor. America retreats from work at great peril.
Adapted from City Journal, where Steven Malanga is a senior editor.