Image: Wikimedia Commons
As Stephen Moore points out in an article for the Heritage Foundation, “at least one million jobs . . . go begging” for employees, even as the unemployment rate remains high. Why? Undoubtedly it has much to do with the fact that the high-paying jobs in question, in manufacturing, trucking, and energy, are hard work.
Of course, the fact that the federal government pays people not to work is also a big factor, as Moore explains:
Too many Americans have come to view blue collar jobs or skilled artisan jobs as beneath them. Contributing to this attitude is the wide availability of unemployment insurance, food stamps, mortgage bailout funds and other welfare. Taking these taxpayer handouts is somehow seen as normal and a first, not a last resort.
Moore laments the widespread loss of the “old-fashioned work ethic.” But there are many signs of hope in this regard, in Dirty Jobs, in North Dakota, in the factories and offices across America where millions of people go to work every day.
