S8 Ep737: 1. Nicholas Eberstadt introduces the "ghost army," comprising over 7 million prime-age American men who have completely exited the labor force. This generational decline began after 1965, with participation rates dropping from 96.6% to 88.2%. The trend
The John Batchelor Show
John Batchelor
4.5 • 2.8K Ratings
🗓️ 13 April 2026
⏱️ 11 minutes
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Summary
Men Without Work and the Changing Labor Landscape
APRIL 13, 2026
In these interviews, political economist Nicholas Eberstadt discusses the growing crisis of prime-age American men who have completely exited the labor force, a group he calls a "ghost army."This demographic of over seven million men is distinct from the unemployed because they are neither working nor seeking employment, often spending their time on screen-based leisure while relying on government disability benefits. The sources explore competing theories for this decline, ranging from structural economic shifts like deindustrialization to supply-side issues such as low educational attainment and the prevalence of felony convictions. Eberstadt highlights a troubling generational trendwhere each successive group of men participates less in the economy than the one before it. Furthermore, the discussion examines how the COVID-19 pandemic exacerbated these patterns by increasing personal savings and creating new disincentives to return to work. To address this social collapse, the author advocates for work-first policy reforms and better data collection on marginalized populations, particularly former convicts.
1. Nicholas Eberstadt introduces the "ghost army," comprising over 7 million prime-age American men who have completely exited the labor force. This generational decline began after 1965, with participation rates dropping from 96.6% to 88.2%. The trend is notably more severe in the U.S. than in Canada. (1)
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| 0:35.3 | This is CBS Eye on the World. |
| 0:38.6 | Here's John Batchelor. |
| 0:40.9 | Men without work, I welcome Nicholas Aberstow of the American Enterprise Institute |
| 0:46.7 | to help me understand his book published some years before |
| 0:51.1 | and now republished with a post-pandemic note from the author about what we learn |
| 0:58.0 | from these years of statistics about men without work. I will transfer my thinking immediately to a |
| 1:05.2 | metaphor that Nick uses in the course of his presentation, a ghost Army. Nick, congratulations again for updating your |
| 1:13.9 | observations of the middle of this second decade of the 21st century. We're now plunged into the |
| 1:19.9 | third decade. And after the pandemic, there are lessons here that are fresh. We're going to |
| 1:26.8 | begin, however, with what is the Ghost Army? |
| 1:29.9 | What do you mean by that? |
| 1:31.1 | Thank you, Nick. |
| 1:32.8 | John, thank you so much for inviting me on. |
| 1:34.9 | The Ghost Army are the men without work in modern America. |
| 1:42.1 | I'm focusing in particular on what are called the men of prime |
| 1:46.6 | working age, not my term, 25 to 54 years old, the backbone of the economy still, |
| 1:55.4 | the group that is absolutely indispensable in the forming of families and the raising of children as well. |
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