Today's teens are no longer mowing lawns, shoveling snow, or starting at the bottom. They've been indoctrinated to go to college and achieve some worthless degree in diversity or gender studies.
Rowe said there's actually tons of jobs available but these jobs no one wants to do because they think its beneath them or they don't have the basic skills to do them.
Reason.com, not Cato Institute.
Aren't there also issues with how some people would rather pick up the illegal alien on the street corner rather than hire the neighbor boy, due to liability issues/laws about hiring minors/tax issues etc.?
It isn't just "office jobs" (read: nonprofits, generally left-leaning) that build good work skills. There are many kinds of work skills to be built. One thing young people need to learn is how things are made and how money is made. Mike Rowe is right: they do need to get their hands dirty.
>> Today’s teens are no longer mowing lawns, shoveling snow, or starting at the bottom.
Those services used to occur well before college. But I think liability concerns also turned off that particular labor faucet.
The world has changed over the past 40 years.
Payroll taxes are higher. Zoning laws place work far away from home making car ownership mandatory. The growth of the welfare state has pushed up prices for necessities like food and shelter. In my area, a small one bedroom apartment attached to a larger residence began at $575.
When I was a kid of 12, I was able to ride a bike to a farm to earn money for new clothes for school. I made just under $10/day.
Today's world is very different. Is a 12 year old even allowed on a farm now? And would a parent let their child bike so far away from home?
There were two work settings for kids and young people in the past: farm work and city shop work. Neither required an automobile. A rural kid or young person could get to work easily. A city kid or young person could do the same.
Today's youth exist on islands called subdivisions and there's little direct connection to the working world.