Christopher Orlet
The American Spectator
5/17/2012
…Even if these aimless youth wanted to work, numerous factors militate against it. Foremost is the lack of good-paying, low-skill manufacturing jobs, the type of work that makes getting off the stoop worthwhile. Today’s big cities are overwhelmingly centers for the financial, legal, and medical service industries. Not exactly prime job hunting territory for young men with zero job skills. True, there are plenty of McJobs for girls, and roofing and lawncare jobs, though employers understandably prefer to hire reliable, undemanding, and hard-working migrant workers.
Child support payments are another popular excuse to avoid work. Many do-nothings are fathers — which means they can do at least one thing well — and see little profit in roasting 40-hours a week on a tar roof only to see their wages go to child support. (Responsibility to their offspring comes in a distant third or fourth.) Others will work until the Bureaucracy catches up with them and begins garnishing their wages.
Moreover, a good percentage of these stoop jockeys are all but unemployable, either because they cannot pass a simple drug test or because of extensive prison records. A surprising number have outstanding warrants; it is hard to keep a job when you are constantly being locked up for this or that drug or traffic offense…
