Nine Million American Men Pushed Out of Workforce by Cheap-Labor Policies, Says Obama Economist

Nine million working-age men have been pushed out of the workforce by the federal government’s salary-cutting economic strategy, says a former economist for former President Barack Obama.

The admission comes as some legislators in Congress renew their push for a huge ‘dreamer’ amnesty that would increase the number of low-wage foreign workers who can take U.S. jobs.

The nine million number comes from a new op-ed by Jason Furman, a top economic advisor to Obama. Without mentioning cheap-labor labor, Furman writes in the Wall Street Journal:

The U.S. has experienced a record 86 consecutive months of job growth. But some nine million men of prime age—that is, between 25 and 54—still are not working. Most have given up looking for jobs. Helping these men get back into the workforce should be a leading public-policy priority …

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.

Reversing the withdrawal of men from the workforce will require rising wages. This can be achieved by improving the skills of workers through education and training and improving the bargaining power of workers to raise wages. Direct steps like expanding the earned-income tax credit could also make a difference, though the policy is absent from the current tax-reform bill—despite Speaker Paul Ryan’s past support for it.

Furman carefully excludes immigration as a reason for Americans’ low wages, but his comments come amid a renewed push for amnesty by Congress.

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