Mike Rowe: The Missing 7.2 Million Male Workers
The Dirty Jobs host is freaked out by the number of men who have dropped out of the workplace.
Today's guest is Mike Rowe, the bestselling author, Emmy winner, and podcaster best known for his stint hosting The Discovery Channel's long-running Dirty Jobs, where he performed the sort of work we all rely on but don't want to think about too much.
From cleaning septic tanks to putting hot tar on roofs to disposing of medical waste, he's done it all—and loves to talk about the value of the hard, honest work that he thinks is devalued by a society fixated on sending everyone to college. I caught up with Rowe at FreedomFest, an annual gathering held this year in Memphis.
We talked about how his mikeroweWORKS Foundation matches young people interested in learning trades with employers dying for applicants, why men continue to fall further behind women in school and work, and how Rowe's booze brand Knobel Spirits, named after his maternal grandfather, is fueling his nonprofit's impact.
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I think the missing 7.2 million male workers realized during the unconstitutional and totally unjustified pandemic lockdowns that they didn’t need government’s permission to work any more. I think they’re still hard at work doing the dirty but necessary jobs they’ve always done but no longer reporting their earnings or pretending that they care what politicians think about it. Of course it would be better to get politicians out of the scene completely, but there is a certain grim satisfaction to be had from sticking it to them without their even realizing that they’ve had it stuck to them!
You think people are working under the table? Dude. People just aren’t working. Help wanted signs are everywhere.
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It could be both. That’s the thing about “under-the-table” work. Like gun ownership, survey takers will never get the full story.
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Dude, the two things aren’t mutually exclusive. After being told that you were “nonessential” and finding out just how little value your fellow Americans placed on your contribution to production it might – I don’t know – maybe affect your social attitude?
Not only that, but being told you are inherently bad, toxic, and worthless by the new administration it doesn’t motivate people to go back to work much. Also consider working couples with kids, they found out after taxes they were working for nothing, so one stayed home, often the man.
Help wanted signs are not under the table jobs.
Wonder if any hung up their tool belts for a cozy job at home posting ActBlue talking points in comments sections.
Doesn’t pay well. Why shrike had to take on multiple Act Blue accounts to get by.
He’s gotta make the 50 cents work more for him so he can afford his van down by the river. That real estate’s expensive, man.
anyone account for all the transitioning?
Millions of Male Workers Cut
But enough about circumcision…
Circumcision? You mean castration!
Hmmmm…is there a corresponding increase of about 7.2 million “women”?
I doubt it comes anywhere near 7 million.
But men, at least the kind that don’t go to college, work with tools, and enjoy rowdy play, are toxic. We have just spent the past couple of decades telling these troglodytes to get lost, and Mike wants to bring them back? Sounds like a MAGA freak.
Just think if more men took what I call “The Eric Hoffer Fellowship,” studying and writing deep, profound thoughts about history, civilizations, and the psychology of joiners of mass movements…yet working as a Longshoreman or some other skilled profession by trade.
They ain’t seen “toxic” or dangerous yet! 🙂
Well the traditional way for lazy useless young men to get fed has been to knock up as many welfare moms as possible and just crash in their cribs until they get kicked out to make room for the next lazy useless fuck. These days it seems they are too distracted by video games and porn to even make that much effort.
Maybe they’re going Galt.
Or they are pulling an Andrew Tate with a good solid bottom bitch and a couple of OnlyFans whores.
Or they are waiting for universal basic income to get going while playing Call of Duty.
I realized with massive inflation that I had to spend the money I already had before making more. Every day working is a wasted opportunity to get value from my previous earnings.
7.2 million freed from their menial blue collar jobs so they could pursue high paying tech jobs as a result of the millions gifts of love pouring over our southern border.
MGTOW?
That is a very interesting idea. How many men just said ‘forget it’ and just walked away. Retired early, faked a disability, or whatever. Maybe living off of a 401k that they cashed out. It would be nice to see a study. If one is available.
I have. Sort of.
I work when I see something worth doing, and otherwise have been taking it easy this year. I mean relative to how I worked most of my life, I’ve always put in the effort even if I got a bad career break a couple of times.
I’m not faking disability or anything. or cashing in retirement, I’m just living cheap (which is hard these days) and not busting my ass to get ahead because getting ahead became impossible for me. And I lived like a pauper to save for a house, for years, only to watch the government fuck everything up. Again. Everything, including my relatively cheap living with their inflation causing spending.
There’s no beautiful second act ahead. There’s no retirement to golf and travel. No nice house. There’s no future I see worth working extra hard for. So there’s right now, at least until some unseen avenue opens up.
Basically, I don’t give a shit anymore. Call it partial retirement until I find something worth going all in on. But I’m not stressed about not filling my savings this month, I’ll get back to it next month. Or whenever.
I KNOW I can’t be the only one.
I’m really sorry to hear that.
What would it take to change your situation, do you think?
Maybe if you are 60 to 65, but hard if you are in the 30-55 range, which would be middle age. That is a long time to go without income and live off savings for the average worker, let alone a low income worker.
I retired the year before the pandemic, but would have retired right now if I had been working. I would have never put up with the bullshit of wearing a mask 12 hours a day at work or getting their experimental vaccine if I didn’t have too.
And I had to wear masks at work for specific tasks and was qualified up to and used a SCBA (self contained breathing apparatus), so I know what they do and don’t do.
Well, I do think we need to ask ourselves how many of the 7.2 million “missing” male workers are really “missing”. Part of the sexual revolution which made it acceptable for women to have occupations outside of the household, also made it acceptable for men NOT to have occupations outside of the household. They are two sides of the same coin. While I’m certain some, perhaps even most, of those 7.2 million really are men who want to work and are prevented from doing so for some reason, there’s probably a bunch who don’t want to work because in that household the woman (or another man) is the primary breadwinner and that’s fine too.
Especially if they have kids. They found out one person was working for paying child care, so actually nothing. Another could be the woke schools indoctrination, maybe some fathers stayed home to home school, especially if they have sons.
I have to think most of them are either supported by their wife, girlfriend, or parents (or grandparents).
I work at Walmart and I have known multiple guys who have quit to live off their wife’s salary. I know a couple of women who did the opposite, worked at Walmart and supported their husband (or boyfriend) (no idea how, though one is a department manager making $25 an hour)
A whole bunch of co-workers, heck even the bulk of them under 30 still live with their parents.
And while I’m only on the floor half the time (other half I unload the truck(s)) I do see a whole of people adult children with their elderly parents and it’s clear that the parent is supporting them