America THE VANISHING AMERICAN WORKER


Economists fear sky-high benefits and COVID largesse have caused irreparable damage to labor markets, and to U.S. work ethic.


BY CLAYTON B. REID where did all the workers go?” It’s a refrain increasing- ly heard everywhere you


go. Restaurants and shops are closing early. Finding help in retail establish- ments is a rarity. Short-staffed managers tell custom-


ers they’ll just have to wait, and “Now Hiring!” signs seem omnipresent. All of which has led to another com-


mon complaint: “Nobody wants to work.” As U.S. wages spiral higher in


search of workers willing to earn them, and with job vacancies still hovering at near-record levels, conservatives are warning the state and federal subsi-


dies doled out during the pandemic — sometimes referred to as “a firehose of cash” — may have permanently altered the “social contract” between compa- nies and their workers. Suddenly, the work ethic of a nation


whose frontier was blazed by settlers, ranchers, cowboys — whose work hours were simply “dawn to dusk” — is being called into question. While some unemployment ben-


efits have waned, rental assistance and expanded healthcare assistance remain in place. Businesses, mean- while, report growing difficulty in lur- ing capable workers. And no sooner do they train them


than they leave for greener pastures. The labor participation rate — the


percentage of working-age Americans either working or actively looking for work — has dropped 1.5% from its pre- pandemic level. That may not sound like much, but


it equates to over 3.5 million workers who have vanished from the workforce. So, is the classic American dream


— the Horatio Alger ideal of an eager young worker who succeeds by dint of a tireless work ethic — a figment of America’s past? Economist Stephen Moore, the


architect of the Trump administra- tion’s economic plan along with Larry Kudlow, blames the evisceration of the Clinton era work-for-welfare require- ments.


Moore’s new book Govzilla: How APRIL 2022 | NEWSMAX 15


ALEXEY REZVYKH/SHUTTERSTOCK


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