Jobless by choice - or pain?

Washington

THE work ethic is such a central part of the American character that it's hard to imagine it fading. But that's what seems to be happening in one important part of the labour force. Among men 25-to-54 - so-called prime-age male workers - about one in eight are dropouts. They don't have a job and, unlike the officially unemployed, aren't looking for one. They number about seven million.

Just what role, if any, these non-working men played in Donald Trump's election is unclear. What's not unclear is that these dropouts, after being ignored for years, have suddenly become a hot topic of scholarly study and political debate. There's been a sea change. In the mid-1960s, only one in 29 prime-age male workers was a dropout. The explosion of dropouts strikes many observers as dire.