The unemployable man and the end of education

The Wall St. Journal’s Dave Wessel sees clearly the problem. His solution is a vapid cliché.

Demand for workers who haven’t much education—which includes many men, particularly minority-group men—is waning. A shrinking fraction of them are working. Some are looking for work; some have given up [...]

Women have suffered less in this recession. They were more likely to be in health care and other jobs that weren’t hit as hard as construction and manufacturing. They are increasingly likely to have the education so often required to get or keep a good job these days.

That’s good for their families. But will there be good-paying jobs in the future for prime-age men, particularly the ones who don’t go to college? [...]

One way to resist these market forces is to reduce the supply of workers who aren’t in demand and increase the supply of workers who are. That is, educate more and better: Fix K-12 schools, improve worker-training programs, strengthen community colleges, give more aid to college students [...]

Another option is on the demand side: Force employers to be less efficient so they have to hire more, or limit imports of goods that threaten jobs of less educated, prime-wage men—solutions with unwelcome side effects [...]

A third option is surrender to market forces and tax the winners to subsidize the losers. Sending checks to idle men is unappealing, but the government could do more to supplement wages (or health insurance costs) for those who work at low wages.

Pffft.

Wessel’s first option is nonsense. Education is not the problem. Never has been. Highly educated workers cannot find jobs. Degreed professional have a higher unemployment rate than high school dropouts. Education makes you more expensive, and more expensive workers are highly vulnerable to foreign outsourcing. Education can make workers overqualified for jobs that are not outsourced.

Yes, I know. Overqualification is the most stupid idea ever. But what do you expect from the dullards in Human Resources.

Wessel’s second option misunderstands the problem. The problem isn’t imports. The problem is that the tax-paying US worker is forced to fund his own labor competition. The government pays companies to locate overseas and hire foreign workers in the US. To make matters worse, companies get a tax credit for foreign outsourcing. The US government uses tax dollars to put taxpayers out of a job. That’s insane.

If redistributing wealth from US workers to foreign workers is bad, then so is transferring wealth from successful workers to unsuccessful ones. That means Wessel’s third option is preposterous too.

Everyone is asking the wrong question.

We need better. Why are companies laying off men and keeping women employed? Why are companies more willing to hire women and less willing to hire men?

Because of government EEOC regulations, women employees provide a unique economic good, and hiring men imposes a unique economic cost.

Hiring women reduces regulatory risk. Vastly fewer men bring EEOC cases. Of the few men who do, vastly fewer are won. No company has ever got into trouble hiring too many women. Firing women imposes huge regulatory risk. Vastly more women bring EEOC cases, and vastly more win those cases.

Hiring men imposes a regulatory cost. Every man a company hires is a lost opportunity to reduce regulatory risk by hiring a woman. Firing a man imposes almost no regulatory risk at all. Men are not a protected class at law.

Hiring women reduces regulatory risk. Firing women vastly increases risk. Hiring men slightly increases regulatory risk. Firing men imposes only a slight risk.

That’s why men lost 80% of the jobs in this recession. That’s why high male unemployment is structural not a market phenomenon. That’s why men are giving up.

When the dice are loaded, why toss them? When everything is stacked against a man, maximizing leisure is quite rational. Smart even.