Men Without Work
&gt; I don’t see us turning the workforce situation around unless we somehow manage to transform our negative imagery about immigrants and start to aggressively seek out productive young, educated immigrants from around the world.<p>He lost me primarily at this point. From my perspective this makes no sense at all.<p>I work grueling 12 hour shifts on an assembly line. My fingerprints have worn off some of my fingertips I work so hard; cuts and scrapes all over my hands and arms from handling product and adjusting machines all day. The other day I stood up too soon while ducking under a belt and a sharp edge put a deep gash in my back.<p>Yet, I have a 2 year degree in mathematics and spend every minute not on the job programming, reading and learning. There is no other opportunity in Western NY for anyone with an associates degree.<p>I can&#x27;t afford to commute an hour to work, and I have a broken down vehicle I can&#x27;t afford to fix because I&#x27;m paying tens of thousands of dollars in student loans back for a worthless degree. I live with my parents, who themselves can&#x27;t get full time jobs (I surmise age discrimination is the biggest factor) with graduate degrees.<p>America is not what it&#x27;s made out to be. Neither is this ``education&#x27;&#x27; that&#x27;s hyped up in the media and online. While I was growing up my parents couldn&#x27;t make ends meet while they were both working. Now, as a full time worker, I see that I definitely cannot make enough to live on my own, a single white male.<p>Obviously, then, the answer is to accept more immigrants, so there&#x27;s more competition for the dwindling number of jobs mentioned in this article (due to technology...).<p>&gt; ... the gains in average education and health of the workforce over the last 50 years are unlikely to be repeated ...<p>Well no-shit sherlock.<p>People are pitched great promises by institutions and universities, only to find out that there&#x27;s no job for them after 4 years of their lives and $100,000 of debt have been spent. Basically, they bought another (probably more expensive) house when they can barely afford the one they have. Further, there&#x27;s likely high competition for anything outside of the medical field.<p>And good luck getting a job in IT unless you know someone (c.f. the latest SO survey).