Web Publication: Wall Street Journal, by Nicholas Eberstadt
The Idle Army: America’s Unworking Men
Workforce dismembered
This news is so old it’s easy to thumb past it just like last year and the year before. It’s Labor Day weekend, and each year articles come out that celebrate the American worker and lament the dearth of appreciation they receive. Yawn, yawn. ‘The Idle Army: America’s Unworking Men’ should not be glossed over so quickly. Hidden herein is a window to a less-than-certain future that stretches beyond the well-worn Labor Day stats you’ve come to brush aside. Forget for a moment that we’re poised to lose millions of jobs in the logistics and service sector over the next 20 years due to automation. If you’re positioned to keep your job, it’s time to seriously wonder what it will cost the employed to accommodate the unemployed once traditional safety nets are broken by the mass. Well that day has arrived, and the impact goes much further than the loss of someone’s paycheck.