America Needs More ‘Workers’ to Get Out and Work

Here is a math problem everybody can understand: If a hundred people are trying to carry a 1,000-pound load up a hill, each person must only carry 10 pounds. If half of those hundred refuse to carry any of the load, then the other half must carry twice as much, or 20 pounds each. For most people, a 10-pound load is manageable, but climbing a hill with a 20-pound load quickly begins to weigh people down.
Well, that is an analogy to what is happening in America. A growing percentage of able-bodied people are choosing not to work, and government allows it, making the burden for those who are working heavier. Is this fair? Does this undermine our national strength?
My cousin, who owns an iron foundry in northern Pennsylvania told me last week they need to increase their workforce by ten percent, but for the first time in almost a century, the foundry is unable to find people willing to work.
Peter Cove, the author of “Poor No More” and founder of America Works had an opinion piece in the July 2, 2017 Wall Street Journal, entitled Get Able-Bodied Americans off the Couch, where he addressed what’s happening in our nation:
“(Our) unemployment rate is at a 15-year low, but only 55% of Americans adults 18 to 64 have full-time jobs. According to demographer Nicholas Eberstadt, the labor-force participation rate for men 25 to 54 is lower now than it was at the end of the Great Depression. The welfare state is largely to blame.
“The good news is that the 1996 welfare reform taught us how to reduce government dependency and get idle Americans back to work. Attaching work requirements to social benefits … would make what these pages have called “America’s growing labor shortage” a nonissue.
“According to the Kaiser Family Foundation, 41% of nondisabled adults on Medicaid do not have jobs. Thirteen million Americans 18 to 54 currently receive SSDI or SSI benefits. Conservatively, work requirements could add 25% of that population (3.3 million workers) back to the labor force. Work requirements for people on SNAP would increase the worker rolls by 1.9 million if only 10% who are not engaged in work rejoined.
”There’s no question that insisting on work in exchange for social benefits would succeed in reducing dependency. We have the data: Within 10 years of the 1996 reform, the number of Americans in the Temporary Assistance for Needy Families program fell 60%. But no reform is permanent. Under President Obama, federal poverty programs ballooned.
“A better long-term solution to the work shortage would be to eliminate all forms of public support except for those who are unable to work, and eliminate all poverty programs, since they have not reduced poverty since they were established in 1965. The money currently being spent on these programs should be redirected to job creation … A trillion-dollar federal infrastructure program, such as the one President Trump has said he will propose, could absorb a large number of the unemployed and underemployed. Too many Americans who could be available to help fuel robust economic growth are instead sitting on the sidelines. It’s time to get them in the game. It’s time to solve our work shortage.”
It is not all about fairness, though; it is also about national security. We are strong when everybody who can is pulling on the rope. At the height of the Cold War Arm’s Race against Russia, we won because of our superior economic power. As the world is again becoming less secure, with China building up their military and challenging us on the high seas, with Russia’s challenge in Europe and the Middle East, with North Korea’s and Iran’s nuclear and ballistic missile threats and with the terror challenges, we can ill-afford to be flabby.
Abraham Lincoln said, “America will never be destroyed from the outside. If we falter and lose our freedoms, it will be because we destroyed ourselves.” We have it within our power to be strong and face all of our challengers, but it will necessitate focus and resolve. There is no plan “B.”
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From The Bible:  A little sleep, a little slumber, a little folding of the hands to rest, and poverty will come upon you like a robber, and want like an armed man. Proverbs 24:33-34