How to Actually Help Young Men Struggling in Our Economy

Summary

Optimist Economy Podcast Episode Summary

Title: How to Actually Help Young Men Struggling in Our Economy
Hosts: Kathryn Anne Edwards and Robin Rauzi
Release Date: August 12, 2025

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Introduction

In this episode of Optimist Economy, hosts Kathryn Anne Edwards and Robin Rauzi delve deep into the economic challenges faced by young men in the United States. Moving beyond surface-level analyses, they explore systemic issues contributing to declining labor force participation among men and propose comprehensive solutions to address these challenges.

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Retconning the Minimum Wage

Timestamp: [00:54 - 07:59]

The episode begins with a retcon (retroactive continuity) of previous discussions on the minimum wage. Kathryn, showcasing her commitment to refining their economic analyses, revisits the topic to clarify critical exemptions and the political complexities surrounding minimum wage legislation.

1. Minimum Wage Exemptions:
   Kathryn highlights that certain groups, such as tipped workers, young workers, and individuals with disabilities, are exempt from the standard minimum wage. She cites an exhaustive report by the US Council on Civil Rights, noting that the National Council on Disability applauded the recommendation that disabled workers should receive the same wages as others (02:13).

2. Political Failure of Minimum Wage Increases:
   Discussing the political landscape, Robin shares insights from a former congressional staffer who explains that "nobody wins" in minimum wage debates, leading to legislative gridlock (02:13). Kathryn adds that proposals to raise the minimum wage face extreme opposition from both sides—those fearing business collapse and those advocating for unrealistic increases, such as $40 per hour (05:24).

3. Case Study: District of Columbia:
   Kathryn presents a case where residents of the District of Columbia voted multiple times to increase the minimum wage, only for the city council to overturn these decisions, illustrating the pervasive challenges even in progressive areas (07:27).

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Defining the Problem for Young Men

Timestamp: [12:30 - 51:16]

The core of the episode focuses on the economic struggles of young men, dissecting the multifaceted reasons behind their declining participation in the labor force.

1. Declining Labor Force Participation Among Men

• Historical Decline:
  Kathryn explains that since 1955, men's labor force participation among prime-age workers (25-54 years) has steadily decreased from 98% to approximately 89% by 2025 (21:10).

• Comparative Stability for Women:
  In contrast, women's participation, which saw significant growth from the 1950s to 2000, has stabilized around 78-80% since then (21:10).

2. Contributing Factors to Men's Economic Struggles

a. Labor Market Difficulties

• Skills and Opportunity Mismatch:
  The decline in manufacturing jobs over decades has disproportionately affected men, leading to permanent exits from the labor market due to mismatched skills or unattractive job opportunities (25:08).

• Felony Backgrounds:
  Kathryn emphasizes the significant barrier that felony convictions pose to employment for men. With a high prevalence of criminal records among unemployed men, the lack of robust records-clearing processes further hampers their job prospects (27:25).

b. Criminal Justice System

• Impact of Incarceration:
  Men with felony backgrounds often find themselves excluded from labor statistics, as they are not counted in the labor force while incarcerated. Even post-incarceration, the stigma and legal barriers continue to impede their economic reintegration (28:25).

• Call for Reform:
  Kathryn advocates for criminal justice reform, including automatic records clearing, to unlock the economic potential of millions of American men (29:14).

c. Disability and Addiction

• Broad Definition of Disability:
  The discussion broadens the definition of disability to include substance use disorders and behavioral addictions (e.g., video gaming, gambling) that disproportionately affect men and hinder their ability to maintain employment (30:00).

• Dual Causality:
  Kathryn notes a two-way relationship where addictions both prevent men from securing jobs and are exacerbated by unemployment (32:24).

d. Family Formation

• Delayed Household Formation:
  The decline in marriage rates and delayed family formation among men correlate with reduced labor force participation. Married men, especially fathers, exhibit high participation rates (~95%), whereas unmarried men are significantly less likely to engage in the labor market (38:44).

• Economic Imperatives of Marriage:
  Economic stability and higher earning potential increase the likelihood of marriage for men, creating a cycle where economic success leads to family formation, which in turn reinforces labor market participation (39:09).

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Critique of Media Narratives on Men’s Struggles

Timestamp: [33:30 - 37:57]

Kathryn and Robin express frustration with prevailing media narratives that oversimplify and stereotype the economic struggles of men. They argue that:

• Simplistic Explanations:
  Media often attributes men’s economic challenges to broad factors like voting behaviors or changing gender roles, neglecting deeper systemic issues like criminal justice reform and addiction (33:30).

• Distracting Narratives:
  Focus on superficial narratives distracts from addressing the root causes, perpetuating misconceptions and failing to provide meaningful solutions (35:34).

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Solutions Proposed by Hosts

Timestamp: [48:40 - 51:16]

Kathryn and Robin outline several actionable solutions to address the economic struggles of young men:

1. Criminal Justice Reform:
   Implementing policies such as automatic records clearing to eliminate barriers for men with felony backgrounds seeking employment (48:40).

2. Addressing Addiction:
   Enhancing support systems and treatment programs for substance and behavioral addictions to improve men's ability to participate in the labor market (48:40).

3. Investing in All Children:
   Advocating for universal investment in child education and development, rather than rationed support based on gender, to foster equitable opportunities (50:00).

4. Workforce Development:
   While acknowledging the importance of apprenticeships and technical training, Kathryn emphasizes that these should be part of a broader strategy addressing the unique challenges men face in the labor market (49:05).

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Audience Feedback

Timestamp: [51:15 - 53:06]

The hosts share and reflect on feedback from listeners, highlighting appreciation for their problem-focused discussions. One listener expressed gratitude for helping to "make their problem smaller" by providing context and solutions rather than reinforcing negative narratives (51:15).

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Conclusion and Light-hearted Segment

Timestamp: [53:06 - 59:29]

Wrapping up the episode, Kathryn and Robin engage in a lighter conversation about spiritual sponsors, sharing personal anecdotes and humorous exchanges to balance the episode's heavy themes. This segment underscores their commitment to community and personal connection with their audience.

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Notable Quotes

• Kathryn Edwards:
  "Criminal justice reform is holding back the economic potential of millions of American men. And to not talk about that in this era of boys and men feels like such a slap in the face of like we've decided you still don't exist and you still don't matter."
  32:37

• Robin Rauzi:
  "Everyone feels that this is a problem. And I don't think we need cognitive decline testing. I think we just need retirement ages."
  53:45

• Kathryn Edwards:
  "The declines are very clearly associated with the demands of parenthood. For what it's worth, women out of the labor force report relatively high levels of emotional well-being if they are looking after a kid."
  21:10

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Key Takeaways

• Systemic Challenges:
  The decline in labor force participation among men is a multifaceted issue rooted in structural problems such as criminal justice policies, addiction, and changing family dynamics.

• Beyond Education Metrics:
  While college enrollment disparities exist, they do not fully capture the economic struggles of men, necessitating a broader economic and social analysis.

• Need for Comprehensive Solutions:
  Addressing men's economic challenges requires targeted reforms in criminal justice, healthcare, addiction treatment, and supportive policies for family formation.

• Critical Media Consumption:
  Listeners are encouraged to critically assess media narratives and seek informed discussions that address underlying economic issues rather than perpetuating stereotypes.

---

Optimist Economy continues to strive for a nuanced understanding of economic challenges, advocating for informed policies that uplift all Americans. This episode serves as a crucial contribution to the conversation on gender and economics, emphasizing the need for targeted solutions to empower young men in the workforce.

Transcript

[A]

This whole episode is just going to be a tribute to, like, songs we could never afford the rights to. Like. The boys are back in town and boys, boys, boys. Charli XCX I watched the video twice today to get ready. Hello and welcome to Optimist Economy. I'm Katherine.

[B]

I'm Robin.

[A]

On this show, we believe the US Economy can be better. And we talk about how to get there. One problem and solution at a time, y'. All. We have a website. It's optimisteconomy.com and it's a little bit newer looking because we received some feedback from many of you that you actually tried to give us money and you couldn't figure out how from our website. So that's on. That's a. That's a cell phone.

[B]

That's on us.

[A]

That's on us. We're trying again. We're learning and growing. Totally unrelated. Someone gave us a review in which they said we were delightful but, quote, unquote, unhinged. And I just have to. Y' all don't even know what we sound like before we start recording.

[B]

And you never will.

[A]

This is like attempt six to get started and sound serious. But that is another way of saying that we absolutely love Yalls reviews and we love getting emails and telling us about the show. So you can go to our website, you can email us@optimist economymail.com or you can leave reviews wherever you get your podcast.

[B]

I also wanted to add that you can join our chat on Substack and we got a subscriber in North Dakota.

[A]

Yes.

[B]

Greetings to you in Fargo. And also several of you have actually come in at kind of a super spiritual sponsor level, and we also wanted to make that in particular easier.

[A]

Yeah. Or the guy who said he wanted to give us money but not have to be committed on a monthly level, I was like, wow, that actually kind of looks like entrapment. Also fixed that. Or at least tried to.

[B]

We did, yeah.

[A]

Oh, man, look at us growing and learning.

[B]

We are. We are. Okay, first up is Retcon. Retcon. Again, retroactive continuity. This is where we talk about things we should have talked about in a previous episode.

[A]

Yes. And we are, like, just ultimately committed to continually retconning the minimum wage. Because I have two more retcons about the minimum wage.

[B]

Great. But two more. I mean, have we done any yet?

[A]

We've already done min wage retcons, and I have two. And in fact, I have three. I just don't know if I'm going to say the Third one, because I'm kind of embarrassed that we still have another one. Okay. Retcon one. We had a listener write in to tell us that in the minimum wage episode, we didn't talk about the fact that there are many occupations and situations in which you don't even have to be paid the minimum wage. So the tipped minimum wage is one of them in which you are able to be paid $2.13 an hour, $2.13 with the assumption that tips will put you up to the minimum wage. But there are also exceptions for people who are young workers, people who are in certain types of occupations, like if they're doing PE rate textile work. But one of the biggest exceptions is for workers with a disability. And you can pay people who have certain types of disabilities less than the minimum wage as a way to increase their employment. The US Council on Civil Rights actually did an exhaustive report on whether or not it benefits or harms the disabled community to have someone with, say, an intellectual disability to be paid a dollar an hour. And they came to the conclusion that disabled workers should no longer have a minimum wage exemption and they should be paid the same wage as everybody else. And the National Council on Disability applauded that. Now they are still exempt from the minimum wage in certain circumstances. Some states are changing that with their own minimum wage, but it is one of the biggest exemptions. So that's min wage retcon1 for those of you following min wage retcon2 is I had a former congressional staffer reach out to me because in the show Robin asked, why do you think it's failed politically on the federal level? And he said my answer was good, but that in his experience, it's that nobody wins. And he said if you think about the minimum wage constituency, the people who are against the minimum wage, you raise it by a cent and they're going to tell you that business will collapse and we won't have jobs or industry anymore. It's a very over the top reaction. They're opposed to any increase, but constituents who are in favor of the minimum wage, it's never enough. You say you're gonna raise it to 15 and they're like, it needs to be 40. And it has two very vocal constituencies in the middle of like, can't you just make it a little bit higher? People don't really hear from them. So I was like, okay, interesting. We post clips of our show on social media channels and the public comment response on minimum wage videos. He was exactly. Whatever I said was wrong. He nailed it every comment we got on the minimum wage was either how much I hate the US economy and don't know anything about it because I want to raise it, or I hate the US economy and don't know anything about it because I don't want to raise it to $40. And I was like, man, this guy was totally right. It's a really toxic subject. And I think from my point of view, I very much discounted it. But I appreciate now that because it's been so long, there's no just a set of reasonable people in the middle.

[B]

Who are like, can we make it 1517?

[A]

How about 1517? Sounds great to me. I won't be thrilled, but I won't be upset. We are erased from this conversation. So I appreciated that he reached out and I appreciated his comments. And it actually made it a lot easier when the comments on the minimum wage video started to come in and I was like, oh my God, why is everybody so mad at me?

[B]

That is really interesting, especially because so many people have a minimum WAGE that's around 15 to $17 an hour. Like leveling that field across the country just doesn't seem like it should be that controversial.

[A]

I know. I'm pretty sure all the people who commented, not a one of them listened to the show. Pretty sure they didn't even finish the video, even if it was only 60 seconds. But it was clearly a topic that hit a nerve. And then the last one is that we had a person, DM me who's from Missouri, who brought up that the minimum wage and paid sick day increase that they voted in and that is being repealed. They made the comment that was, it's just really hard when even in a place that's relatively conservative, people want something and your representatives don't listen to you. And I just wanted to tell her and everyone who lives in no, we don't say red and blue state on this show. Everyone who perhaps has a little bit more of a progressive bent than their representatives or who feel like policies that should be passed like the minimum wage shouldn't be so hard to be enacted in the communist capital of this country. District of Columbia, One of the bluest parts that you will ever come across in terms of a voting block. The citizens of the District of Columbia have twice voted to end the tipped minimum wage so that all workers make the same minimum wage and twice the solidly Democratic way to the left of center, City Council has overturned it. So they voted it in office.

[B]

Really?

[A]

Yeah, they voted it. They voted it up. Majority wins. The Council overturns it, they put it on the ballot again. An even stronger majority votes for it. It's starting to be phased in. Council just announced this month or last month that they are going to pause the phase in and not bring it to the full minimum wage. They're going to cap it at like 75%. So twice the people of the District of Columbia have voted for a minimum wage increase that even their very liberal city council has overturned.

[B]

Crazy.

[A]

Yeah. So it's, it's. I don't want people to think that there are these halcyon places where progressive policy just becomes action and you live in some other place that's being thwarted by bad representatives. I think that there's truly a lot of fear that dictates policymaking as well as a very uneven representative representation of who picks up the phone and calls when they're mad. And that's not. That's not a Republican thing or a Democrat thing. That is just. That is an everyone thing.

[B]

I have a couple of retcons. I got a text from a friend who said, you got paid 435 an hour on your first job. I got paid 335. And I looked. Actually, I got paid 335 an hour on my first minimum wage job. Second. This is actually about our poverty episode. I actually went back and we mentioned briefly about General Assistance, and I kind of just threw out that it was not very much. So I went and looked in. In Los Angeles county, the monthly amount of money you would get if you were to get a grant from General assistance is $221 for a person and $375 for a married couple. You can only have about $100 in your bank account in order to qualify for that. And you can have a car that has to be worth less than $2,000, unless you're actually living in it, in which case it can be worth 4,500. Anybody who thinks that you can live on $221 a month or even buy groceries. That's how generous our general assistance program is.

[A]

That's depressingly low.

[B]

Yeah. And it hasn't changed in I don't even know how many decades.

[A]

It's an optional program for states to do, and they fund it. And so it's just. I mean, the fact that LA County Assistance is still, like, better than some.

[B]

Yeah, yeah. Okay. Terms and conditions. Katherine, what you look up this week.

[A]

I looked up. I think I'm saying this right. A scoff law.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

Someone who violates the law.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

Didn't it just didn't.

[B]

You didn't. You know you didn't.

[A]

Oh, you didn't know it? No, I didn't know it. Robin, I'm reading a gripping biography of Ed Rendell and this word came up and I was like, scofflaw. I'll have a term and condition. But apparently, apparently it's just impressive.

[B]

I thought you should know. Sorry, sorry.

[A]

You know, I did fine on the sat.

[B]

I'm sure you did. Yeah. I looked up involution. I came across this story in a news article about the Chinese auto market. And then I looked it up and the definition didn't make any sense at all. And apparently this word has just taken on a new meaning in China or related to China in particular. I don't know how they say it in China where it means sort of an extreme competition that leads to kind of damage to the competitors. The story I was reading was about the auto market, particularly in electric cars in China, where it becomes the self defeating cycle of excessive competition and then becomes damaging deflation for the whole sector.

[A]

Fascinating. Yeah, like my head's spinning a little bit of like mic drop. Too much competition leading to bad things in a country that's notionally communist.

[B]

I know. So in China, I don't want anybody to think I'm an expert on the Chinese economy. But when there's some sort of new product, or in this case electric cars, that a bunch of companies will enter the market space all at once. But they're all also sort of state supported regionally because all of the provinces have their own economic growth goals. So they're basically doing, you know, what Uber did. But on this massive industry wide scale, right. They're buying market share by dropping prices and in fact they're just, they wind up cannibalizing each other.

[A]

Yeah. I do have a friend who works in this space who has told people like, you don't want to buy a $14,000 electric car. Right. Like that price is so wrong and way too low that it has to represent like nefarious things happening or bad, like very bad treatment of workers, bad treatment of the minerals state subsidization, like that. This is not a good form of competition with American automakers to have a $14,000 electric car. This is getting very close to suggesting we should do an episode on trade, which we are not going to do.

[B]

Fair enough, fair enough, fair enough.

[A]

Let's get to the big pilcrow, the big pilgrim. The big Pilcrow today is about boys.

[B]

Boys. And is it just boys or Is it going to be boys and young men?

[A]

Boys and men?

[B]

How old is. What's our outside? I just want to define some terms here.

[A]

So technically I'm going to go all the way up to 54.

[B]

Okay, good to know.

[A]

Boys. Boys. All right. So the motivation for this show came via an experience I had in my other capacity of being an expert that goes on radio and TV and talks to print journalists. I went on a radio show in LA to talk about boys.

[B]

Right.

[A]

Got to text Robin and she tuned in and that was awesome.

[B]

I did real time backstage.

[A]

The kind of premise of the show all hinged on boys go to college at much lower rates than. Than girls. And so there was two experts on the show, my counterpart who was talking about education and really thinking about younger men, and me talking about employment and earnings and thinking of older men or boys. I don't know, it's really hard to decide which one to call them. Boys or men.

[B]

Yeah, yeah.

[A]

Anyway, this is just to say I went on a radio show and I think that I learned through my experience of participating in this show just how concerned people are about the prospects of young men and how I'm going to say this as kindly as possible, displaced a lot of that might be.

[B]

The public affairs show did a week long series about boys and men, but it didn't come out of nowhere. There have been, I'm honestly going to. I'm going to trace this back to the election. Just article after article after article about what's going on with young men. And what's sort of fascinating is, you know, these trends, some of them date back decades, decades.

[A]

The link that they made that I had problems with was because boys aren't going to college at the same rate as girls, there must be something going critically wrong with K through 12 education.

[B]

Right?

[A]

And he even said on the show things like, some boys do okay, but other boys are survivors of an education system that doesn't fit them. That, you know, it is particularly tough for young men to know what they want to do at 18. And I'm like listening to this and I'm like, hang on, hang on. So Robyn could tell you because she listened live in the show. I did pour buckets of cold water on him a couple of times and pointed out things like, men out earn women at every education level. Men have higher employment than women at every education level. And then I'm in the middle of this, like, rant and there's a lightning storm in Houston and the power goes out at this truly devastating moment where the Host asked me, do you think we're getting to a place where women will out earned men? And I mean I was like categorically not. And I go through like all these reasons really quickly and then I say, so no, boom, power goes out and I stop talking. Even though I had a whole other thing after that.

[B]

It was, it sounded on the radio like the biggest like, so no.

[A]

Houston gets stormed. The power flickered and I mean it flickered and I was just like, oh, oh no, here it comes, I'm off air. And then this is like really meek text message from Robin. Wow, that was harsh. So now this is the show where we are proverbially keeping the power on so I can continue talking about boys and men, which I didn't get to do when I was cut off on live radio in a very popular public affairs talk show in la. So, so let's continue this conversation here more gently. A little bit more gently. Okay, so I'm going to take on the premise of the radio show that we were on, which is that girls and boys don't go to college at the same rate. They don't. They haven't for decades. If you look at share of men versus share of women who have college degrees, women passed men in 2014. Of all adults who were holding degrees, the women college educated share passed men in 2014. They've been going to college at higher rates for 40 years. And so that felt like there was a little bit of a what are you making this crisis out of? But in the pandemic, when college going and education was severely affected, men's enrollment.

[B]

Did fall and it didn't really bounce back.

[A]

It didn't bounce back. So in the fall of 24, 63% of high school graduates start college in the fall. Among women it's around 70%. Among men is around 55%. So it's a gap, big gap. It's a 15 point gap. And it got bigger after the pandemic. But it is not a reversal of trend, but rather an acceleration of one. So the bucket of water that I poured on the show was the outside options for college don't look the same for men and women because as long as we've had a labor market, we've had concentration of men and women in certain occupations and the non college occupations for men pay much better. So that means that if you are a woman and you don't go to college, your earnings prospects are going to be much lower than a man's that doesn't go to college.

[B]

Yeah, like a lot Like a lot.

[A]

Like a lot less. Like a lot, a lot less. So college for, like, the returns to college education aren't just. I mean, we think about it so much in terms of the student loan question of, like, is it worth how much you borrow versus what kind of income you'll get after the fact. But there is a massive other aspect to this equation, which is, what are you leaving on the table for four years while you are in school? And that relative, like, return on investment for women is so much higher because their outside option is so much lower.

[B]

They'Re also taking on more debt. Like. Yeah, it's. I mean, it's. It's a pretty complicated calculation.

[A]

Yeah. So that was the first bucket of water I wanted to pour. The one that I didn't get to talk about. Not related to the power going out, but just something that didn't get a chance to broaden the conversation is that if you look at different races and look at the difference in college going by men and women of different races, the biggest gap is among Hispanics.

[B]

More Latino women go than men.

[A]

Yes. So the overall gap would get wider, all else equal, simply because Hispanics are a growing share of the population. But I guess what really bothered me about this whole conversation is that if you were to ask me, a labor economist, is there something worrying you about men? This would not come up. This would not be on my list of things that I'm worried about is college enrollment. That wouldn't come up.

[B]

Yeah, you've talked about this a little bit before about college, when we talked about employment for college, recent college grads. They're a population that's easy to identify, that's easy to slice out of studies. But I thought, I don't know that this is the right metric that we should be looking at if we agree that there are sociological problems or labor market problems. I don't know that college enrollment is the right diagnostic tool here.

[A]

Yes, exactly. And if you treat as the big problem that men and women don't go to college at the same rate, you're not gonna get to the actual economic problem facing men, which is that they have had declining labor force participation for as long as we have measured it, and something is happening to men over the long term that is pulling them out of the labor market not when they're 18, but when they're like 35. This is a problem because this means it's a much. It's a much bigger population. It spans every level of education. Men with a college degree, men with some college or Associate's degree men with a high school degree, all three of them have seen decades long declines in labor force participation.

[B]

And this is like you said, it's been going on since like the 50s.

[A]

Or something, as long as we've measured it. So man, not to overwhelm listeners with numbers, economists measure the Most important to US population in the labor market is 25 to 54 year olds, prime age, because prime age, that big old piece of meat in the middle, that A1 steak. Because younger than that you were in school or doing various things and older than that you're probably going to start retiring. So we look at 25 to 54 because it's the best. Yeah, it's the best indication of like, is the labor market doing a good job as opposed to did you decide to go to school or did you decide to leave early or did you have some health condition like this one is true.

[B]

Everyone you expect to be working if they're going to be working in this age range.

[A]

Yeah. So men's labor force participation amongst prime age workers, we started measuring this in 1955. Between 1955 and 2025, it's basically been on a slow decline that entire time. It started around 98%, is now around 89%. Okay, so it's just a decline. Now women, on the other hand, they are in possibly their third era where in between 1955 and 2000, their labor force participation rate basically doubled and they went from around 40% to almost 80 in 2000. Between 2000 and now, women's labor force participation in the prime age has flatlined and it's been stable at around 78 to 80% since then. So men straight line down, not that steep of an angle, but always going down. That is the bigger concern. It's a lot more people and it reflects a trend that isn't going to be explained by like the pandemic. Something is going on in the labor market. Now the reasons for this decline among men could be shifting, but this effect is a much more worrying effect than just did you go to college?

[B]

Right, right. This cuts across all segments of age groups and levels of educational attainment. That suggests that, yeah, there's something much, much broader going on and it's getting worse.

[A]

You know, women's participation flatlined around 2000, but we know why they don't have childcare. Being a parent is tough and the declines are very clearly associated with the demands of parenthood. For what it's worth, women out of the labor force report relatively high levels of emotional, well, Being if they are looking after a kid, right? So if you ask a woman who's not working, you know, when she's home with two kids or one kid or you know, 10 kids, like she's pretty happy, like she's pretty satisfied with her life. What makes men's labor force participation decline also worrying is that they are not happy. It's not as if they like, oh no, I was like, I'm going to retire at 40 and I'm loving this. Like that's not what we're seeing. Not only is this a growing share of the men's population, but they are not doing well. I think this is why I was so frustrated by the conversation on the LA show. We've had decades of trying to understand what is hurting men in the labor market and it just, it doesn't get the same airtime even in this era of the crisis among boys and men. And so I wanted to use our show to give attention to those problems, to discuss what research has found. And you know, all of it's really fascinating. There's, there's one good reason, so obviously we should dispel that one really quickly. One reason for the decline in men's labor force participation is that they're going to post baccalaureate education more so more Master's degrees, more MDs, more JDs, more PhDs. And those people can be older than 25. So there's a decline in the prime age labor force participation of men. And some of it is great because they're getting more education in these good skilled jobs. The rest are bad. So the next three are basically the three groups of what we think are pulling men out of the labor force. So the first one is labor market difficulties, which is that they do not find their place in the labor market and permanently leave. This was definitely something that was brought up a ton in the 80s and 90s as US started to shed manufacturing employment. And you have, some people would call this like a skills mismatch or an opportunity mismatch. Some people would focus on things like men didn't want to do jobs that were left available because they're dominated by women or because they are skilled in certain things and the jobs that are replaced are lower paying. That is going to be one reason why men were out of the labor market.

[B]

The other you've got, I mean, manufacturing, right, goes from like, I don't know, 18% of private employment to like 10%, but that's over a 40 plus year. That's two generations of workers that this happened over like this was, you know.

[A]

Well, so some of it is like people who are affected by job loss versus the opportunity is missing.

[B]

Oh, I see. Okay.

[A]

If you're laid off from a very good high paid manufacturing job in 1990 and you're 45 years old, your employment prospects are not going to be good.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

But if you are instead 19 in 1990 and you, you don't find the manufacturing job, that's a different problem. It's a function of the fact that men and women don't have the same jobs. Some jobs, some industries are more male dominated. Some jobs, some industries are more female dominated. And this means that their labor market experiences differ not because of their gender, but because of their job. Even today people are pointing out that the college grad unemployment rate is higher for male grads than female grads. But right now in the economy, growth outside of health and education has been weak. And men don't work in health and education jobs to the same degree. I mean, as long as men and women have different jobs, they'll have different labor market experiences. And it's just really reductive to say who has it worse. Like the pandemic hit women a lot harder. The Great Recession hit men a lot harder. Loss of manufacturing, reduced high paying job opportunities for men. Care work has never had high paying job opportunities for women. So I mean, you cannot categorically cannot make the case that men's jobs or women's jobs have fared better in the economy. They both have problems. And I think that making that case is distracting from what are the true, like gender issues. And for men there is a much bigger, but in some ways uglier problem that we don't like to talk about when it comes to a truly male problem in the labor market. The other part of the labor market, which I think is maybe a more dominant story, is just how high a share of men without a job have a felony background.

[B]

Yeah, nobody wants to talk about that.

[A]

Nobody wants to talk about it. And nobody wants to hire a felon. And nobody really wants to embrace records clearing.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

So we have an incredibly long reach for our judicial and carceral system. And we have let that system basically encroach on the juvenile system for some time, especially among men and especially given the nature of the crime. And men commit a lot more crime than women and in general crime committing, it's when they're young, it's like 19 is when crime. The peak of crime committing is 19. Yeah, someone's going to ask about this. So I'm going To explain it quickly, if you are in an institution, whether it's the military, a old folks home or prison or jail, you are not counted in the labor force statistics. It is a measure of the civilian non institutionalized population. So this isn't picking up people who are in prison.

[B]

Right.

[A]

This is only going to pick up people who are out of prison. Even amongst people who are out of prison, their felony history is a massive barrier to employment and it affects such a high share of men without a job.

[B]

Yeah. And probably the same non college educated group disproportionately too.

[A]

Yes.

[B]

It's going to be really interesting to me how this plays out and if it gets better because one of the things about Gen Xers is that we were the most incarcerated generation and millennials and Gen zers are actually being arrested and committing crimes at much lower rates. So it could be that you will get a little bit of a lower touch with the criminal justice system in the decades ahead, which would be a nice side benefit on the employment market.

[A]

Yeah. But I mean if you were going to bring up to me like what would help men in the economy, I would say criminal justice reform. And we need to actually change how we execute charge charge plea. Criminal justice reform is holding back the economic potential of millions of American men. And to not talk about that in this era of boys and men feels like such a slap in the face of like we've decided you still don't exist and you still don't matter. And there might be something racial going on in our assessment of that because the tragedy of boys and men's team is often very white coated. So labor market difficulties, whether that's that a factory closed, you didn't have the same type of jobs available to you when you turned 19 or you are carrying around the weight of a felony conviction that makes it hard to get a job. That is one massive factor for the labor force participation decline of men is that they have been pushed out by either opportunities they don't have, don't want or can't reach. That's one. The second one and the most prevalent probably today is disability. A very, very high share of men who are not in the labor market cite some kind of disability. A disability could be physical, it could be mental, it could be psychological. It also can be a term that applies to people who are suffering from a substance use disorder, whether that's drug addiction or alcohol addiction. And then something that kind of through the addiction link gets put in this category are addiction to non substances like addiction to video games. Computer games and gambling. And these addictions, the substance use addictions and the kind of, the behavioral addictions, they affect men more and they affect their ability to hold a job.

[B]

Even though they're not categorized by workforce standards as disabled, there is something disabling about those behaviors.

[A]

There's disability as measured, kind of we talked about in the poverty episode. There's disability as in the government says you are disabled and now you start.

[B]

To get cash, qualify for SSDI or whatever or ssi.

[A]

Then there is just, I am telling you in surveys and I'm reporting and when people ask why don't you work? I am saying that it's because of a disability, but I don't get cash for it. And either that's because I have a diagnosis that's not recognized or a disability. I'm not severely disabled enough in order to get the diagnosis or the disability check. But I am reporting that the reason why I'm not working is because I'm not physically able to. I mean, economists have studied these each, they've done papers on video games and how much an addiction to video games especially pulls 21 to 30 year old men out of the labor market. And men who aren't working, they do play a lot of video games. I would say it's a two way street of causality. We don't know how wide the lanes are, but we know there's traffic going in both directions. Video games are pushing people out of the labor market and video games are also keeping them out of the labor market because they're, that's what they're doing because they can't find a job.

[B]

Right?

[A]

But you know, gambling, opioids, these are all hard, you know, nationwide social issues where the problem is manifesting as not as many men are working.

[B]

And, and we know that those are.

[A]

Problems and we know that they're problems and this is one of the consequences of them.

[B]

I see a lot of these articles, like I read one in of all places, Harvard magazine, right? Not because I went to Harvard, just FYI. But it's like they're these sweeping indictments of like what's wrong with men, right? And it will do the college thing and then the job thing and then all of these other like deaths of despair and it's painting with like this huge wide brush. And journalism has great purposes in the world, but diagnosing and teasing out what's the relationship between these things is not really the strong suit of journalism. And we've got a lot of those.

[A]

Articles, we have a lot of Those articles and every. Every one that I read makes me mad. On behalf of the, like, people who have problems that we don't address. Of, like, let's navel gaze for 6,000 words about what it means to be a man in Trump's second term and why they voted for him more. As opposed to, like, it's criminal justice reform. You've put way too many people in prison. We have drugs on the street that they get addicted to. Then there's video games. Like, you are ignoring social problems that have hard solutions and hard conversations to go for these. Like, isn't it interesting to think about, like, women cresting as an economic power? Like, no, it's not. It's really not. It's not that interesting at all. It's really not. Because women aren't cresting as an economic power. They make 80 cents on the dollar and have for almost three decades. Like, there is not some, like, massive gender swing of, like, women are rising like Phoenix from the ashes while men have to sit back and wonder what their role is. Like, no, absolutely not. Deal with drugs, deal with prison, deal with crime, deal with all these hard conversations instead of being like, man, women are really crushing it right now. It makes me, like, it does a disservice to women who are struggling, who suddenly get painted as if, like, they have everything in the world going for them because they weren't diagnosed with adhd at age 10. And that men are like, we must think about what our society must look like for men. No, men are in our society struggling, and you are ignoring them because it's more fun to navel gaze about, like, what it means they voted for Trump. I don't care. Yeah, they have addiction issues. You're kicking them off Medicaid. Like, I don't know. I just. It gets me so mad to have these, like, almost, like, academic, intellectual of, like, what does it all mean in the election? Like, is this why Kamala Law? Like, instead of, maybe we should have passed criminal justice reform. Maybe we should have a felony records clearing process that's automatic and required in every state. Maybe we should do a better job treating addiction.

[B]

Yeah. Yeah. That was a big sigh.

[A]

I get really mad about this because people love looking for the wrong solution that is more interesting and palatable, and people love ignoring the hard problem, and they love being distracted by a conversation that is meaningless.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

Which is why we podcast everybody. Okay, so, yeah, this is. Yeah, we put that on the.

[B]

I do think that there were a lot of men quoted in the news who did after the Election say no one's paying attention to our issues. And I think part of the problem with that is, is, I mean, they might be, right. Like, the addiction issue may not be their issue. The education part of it may not be their issue. Like, there are myriad reasons that these things are coming together in this way.

[A]

People understand narratives more than they understand cause and effect.

[B]

For sure.

[A]

Right? Like, you should know the narrative. You should understand the narrative. You should be empathetic with the narrative. But the narrative can't determine policy because often the narrative is wrong or it makes leaps of judgment in order to fit into a nice little story. And it's missing the. The complexity, it's missing the nuance of people who don't fit into the nice story, which are often the people who are most severely hurt. You know, I. I should say I'm not trying to be unsympathetic. I understand that someone could listen to this and say, well, I'm a man and I can't find a job, but apparently, if I don't have a drug addiction or a felony record, I don't matter. It's not that the labor market is weak right now and getting weaker. And that is the biggest problem most workers are facing. Male or female, young or old, college grad or high school grad. The labor market is slowing down. And that is the problem. If we want to respond to what is specifically hurting men and not workers overall, it is these, like, less applicable broadly, but still affecting some men very deeply. Criminal justice and disability. It's hard, right? I don't want to make it sound like what you're going through isn't important, but what you're going through isn't male. It's American Americans in an economy whose labor market is slowing down. So to review, we have, like, schooling, good labor market and criminal justice issues. Not good. Disability, addiction, not good.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

Four is changes in family. So here's a fun fact. Labor force participation rates of men with children at. At home, especially if they're under 6, has never declined.

[B]

Hmm.

[A]

Men, especially when they have kids at home, participate at almost 100% rates in the labor market. It's around 95%. There is a story here that because we have lower fertility and because we have delayed family formation, as well as lower marriage rates in general. The changes to the way that US Households are formed has also kind of mechanically resulted in men working less because they're not married and men working less because they're not fathers. And fathers work at really the highest rates.

[B]

Okay. So, first of all, Household formation is like, that's another one of these economics.

[A]

Is that another way that you.

[B]

No, it's kind of. It's up there with consuming leisure.

[A]

Household formation. Household formation, Family formation is what we would call getting married and having a kid and setting up your own household, which I'm sure y' all humans have a way to describe, but I would call it family formation.

[B]

We might call it shacking up.

[A]

I don't know, it's with the ring. So men, again, this is a two way street. But certainly one part of the decline in men's labor force participation has to deal with. With not being married.

[B]

Has to, has to do with not being married.

[A]

Yeah, because the. There are some economists who think that as the labor market prospects of men declined, they became less marriable. I mean, economists do refer to marriage as a market and not like a meat market and kind of like a tongue in cheek way. I mean, like, we mean like an actual market. Like this is an economic transaction which is. Is sure artless, but it is a lens that exists that like men who have very high earnings, men who have very high earnings potential, men who have high economic stability, they're much more likely to be married than men who don't. And men who don't have a job, men who have never had a job, they're much less likely to be married again. That's a two way street of are you rejecting the labor market or is the labor market rejecting you? Are you rejecting women or are women rejecting you? But it's a very, like, they have very different rates of work of an unmarried man and a married man. And same thing with fatherhood. Dads work more than non dads, even conditional on marriage. This is the one where I'm like, this one's the hardest one to talk about because this is the one that I think people would jump on to blame women really, because they're not marrying.

[B]

Men and making them step up. I mean. Yeah, that seems kind of crazy.

[A]

Yeah. It's also our fault that childcare has failed. So like, I mean, what's not our fault here, Robin?

[B]

What's not to. We talked about this related to fertility and teen pregnancy. There are things that we actually encourage as a society, one of which was, you know, kind of delaying marriage, not getting married at 19 and 20 or. And waiting till maybe you'd gone to college. And particularly if women are going to college, not getting married until you're out of college.

[A]

Well, it's. Yeah, I mean, because we were, you know, for a long time the Nightmare was divorce. And if the Gen Xers are the most incarcerated, the boomers divorce like nobody's business. Now, granted, it was when divorce and access to divorce changed, but I want to say outside of World War II, so 45 and 46, massive divorce years. Like, nothing will ever come close to the number of people who came home from World War II or the war ended, and they're like, this is not working. Yeah. Big, huge shoot up in divorce at the end of World War II. And then it goes quiet for a while because it's very hard to access divorce for a very long time in the US with the way that fault was written and the way that child custody worked and lacked child support. That all changes in the 70s and the early 80s are like, boom time for divorce lawyers. Boom time for divorce lawyers. The 1980s were incredible. Like, especially the first half of the 1980s in just terms of the sheer number of marriages that are dissolved. Yeah. So after that we had this, like, you shouldn't get married at 19. Yeah. Because those marriages have. Because the younger you get married, the higher the fail rate of a marriage.

[B]

Right.

[A]

Especially if you get married before 21. So you really push people of, like, you need to wait before you get married. But it also means that kind of family formation. Family formation is also delayed, and that affects men and women differently. The reason why I say I'm worried to bring up the family thing is that I had someone, this woman DMed me, and she was like, you know, my husband genuinely thinks that women being in the economy makes the economy worse.

[B]

Oh, yeah.

[A]

And that if women weren't working, men would have more jobs, better jobs, they'd earn more money. And so he thinks that, like, we shouldn't have things like, like access to free child care because it would put more women in the labor market. And that hurts men and they're competing.

[B]

With men for jobs.

[A]

And the economy does better when it's just men. And yeah, I had to, like, take.

[B]

A deep breath there, put down my.

[A]

Phone, not do yoga.

[B]

But definitely falling stick pose. It's time.

[A]

Whatever weird pose my son came up with. But I just, just. There are many men who have, I think, found appeal in the idea that it's harder for them because women are here. And I trace a lot of this back to before and after are not the same thing as cause and effect. And before women worked, you would get married and have kids, and a man's wage would support a whole family. You didn't have to go to college for it. And so everything that's happened since.

[B]

Well, it's because women empty.

[A]

The women are working now. So it must be that women ruined the economy. And I was gonna do a quick fact check and say don't need to retcon this one. That is not true. The decline of men's wages is not because women were working. And this idea that it's women's fault, I think it has an appeal for a lot of men. But again, if you don't diagnose the problem correctly, you won't find the solution.

[B]

Yeah, it's interesting you were just saying, you know, they don't hold the same jobs. I did see a lot of mention of the fact that men aren't generally being drawn to growth areas. Right. Healthcare jobs in particular, besides doctors are still dominated by women. Where, you know, construction jobs are still dominated by men. And so jobs that can be cyclical can be particularly cyclical. Education, same thing. Education. Well, we'll see what continues to happen but has been a growth area and where construction work goes up and down. And as we discussed though people didn't like it. Engineering work too.

[A]

Yeah. I mean in some ways women becoming economically empowered is a fall guy. And I think maybe going back to this conversation on the LA radio show, it felt like girls doing well in school was a similar fall guy. Of like that means that public education was designed for girls and bad for boys because girls do well in it. And it felt like why is this the comparison? Whenever I'm in a conversation about boys and men and it comes up in a lot of spaces in a lot of policy circles, something that I always think of in these types of conversations is this like general finding about the effect of divorce on health. So divorce isn't good for health for men or women. Now these are averages. They're, you know, people are different and divorces are different and life is textured. But in general, if you were to tell me you were getting divorced and you were a woman, I would say research would predict that you're going to have worse health for the rest of your life because you're going to have lower income and you have a higher earning partner and you either don't work or you earn more, less money than him and you are about to move down in the income distribution and that's going to harm. That's going to affect your health. Yeah. And that it'll affect your health for a long time. For men, the prediction would be you are about to fall into a black hole of self care.

[B]

Like a bad, a black hole of.

[A]

Non Self care, the black hole of non self care. Like men, the health issues that are typical for men who have become divorced are things like they don't eat as well, they don't exercise, they don't have basic self care. They might not go to the doctor, but their bad health kind of ends when they get a new partner who.

[B]

Says, hey, you should get a colonoscopy.

[A]

When was the last time you've been to the doctor? Never.

[B]

Never.

[A]

You should probably go to the doctor. Yeah. Men in partnerships are healthier. And I think about this in terms of, there's some ways it serves as a point of reference for these conversations where women are struggling because of their lack of economic power and men are struggling because the lack of women caretaking. And that is how divorce, like, gives this insight into gender, which is both like a mirror that might be hard to look at, but does tell us something about men and women in the economy. So this family question, I think is the one that gets both the most toxic and also presents a conversation that's hard to have, which is like, why do men struggle to take care of themselves to the degree that, that women can take care of themselves? And like, women struggle to be as economically independent. You know, men struggle without women who are taking care of them, at least from this perspective. I don't, I'm trying not to speak in like blanket terms, but to bring it up as a point of reference. I mean, I don't know, it's, it, it lives back there in these conversations of gender roles. But I mean, if you were to ask me, like, if you were to come to me, labor economist, and say, what do we do, Katherine, you're the new commissioner of the Boys and Men Commission, I would absolutely pursue a criminal justice reform, juvenile justice reform, records clearing policy that would make our criminal justice system a little bit more forgiving and not make every crime a life sentence. And then I would attack as like viciously as possible, addiction.

[B]

You know, I think that there's a lot of talk about apprenticeships and technical school and career training and doing more of that for young men in particular who don't want to go to college or who are trying to re enter the workforce. I mean, I don't think those are bad things. I think that that kind of workforce development is good. I don't know that it. I'm curious what you think about it. Solving the reduced labor force participation in the big picture.

[A]

I don't think what's wrong with non college jobs is a male thing. I think we could do Better. But like if you were to ask me, like what in particular would I do to put men first to deal with their issues so that they don't feel ignored, I would look at criminal justice in addiction because those do affect men so disproportionately. And of men who are in the labor market, which is I, I say this not because I think the labor market is the end all, be all, but it is a very like big predictor of health and life satisfaction. We know who's left out of that world on the men's side for reasons that are terrible. That is what we should focus on. If you wanted to talk about middle skill occupations, to me it's a men and women's issue. There are problems and strengths in both directions and that just needs its own thing. That would be another one of those. You're putting a problem first that's nicer to solve and better to work on and still ignoring the really ugly things thing. So that's why it would not be part of my presidential commission on boys and men agenda. I know almost nothing about child development and there could be like a legit child development thing. But if there's a child development thing, it's going to affect girls too. And I wouldn't put an 11 year old boy above an 11 year old girl. I don't like the degree to which the focus on children becomes this rationed competition of like, well, you got to help boys or you got to help girls. No, we under invest in all children. We under invest in all children. We don't feed children. We don't give them enough education or development or community involvement. We punish them if we don't like their parents very cruelly. That is problem one. I know that boys and girls are different, but I would never want to make any type of investment in children. Have to be rationed across children. The idea that we need to somehow put kids under 18 in some kind of line over who needs the investment first. Like no, not working for me. You have to invest in all children. I am not competing for funds. No. Again, I go back to disability, addiction and criminal justice.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

All things I didn't get to say after the power went out. So like imagine how long that radio show, I mean look how, look how long our shows are for that radio show to be that long.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

One of the comments we got on one of our last shows on youth unemployment was from, I think it was on Spotify. But the comment was I really appreciated what you said about youth unemployment because young people have a Doomerism about them. And it's been a hard time to grow up with how much negativity there is in the air. And he just said, I appreciated that it was find the problem to get to the right solution. I'm paraphrasing, but it meant a lot to me to hear that even saying something that doesn't confirm your priors, that maybe makes what you think smaller than it is. Yeah, yeah, I appreciated that there were people who listened, who were willing to not only hear, but tell me that I made their problem smaller. Even if they're still suffering because you.

[B]

Put it in a bigger context.

[A]

Yeah, yeah. God. And his review is not as long as what I just said, but it was not.

[B]

I think it's time for a little palate cleanser.

[A]

Palate cleanser.

[B]

Shake it off.

[A]

Executive order. My executive order is all playgrounds need bathrooms.

[B]

Totally.

[A]

Every playground in the United States needs functioning, clean toilets. The idea that I will take changing rooms. The idea that I will take a child to a place outside where there's no bathroom, man, it's such hell sometimes.

[B]

Terrible idea.

[A]

Yeah. So I think every America, you need to put your hatred and fear of homeless people aside and build millions more bathrooms.

[B]

And you could start on the 101 in California and playgrounds. Just as a starting point, my executive order was inspired by this story about Marie Glusenkamp Perez, who is the congresswoman from Washington, from the district that is actually in Washington state, but just north of Portland, Oregon. She was suggesting that we needed to do cognitive testing among elected officials. I think that this is the long way around. We just need retirement ages. We just need mandatory retirement ages for all sorts of political offices. Congress, Senate, courts, all of them.

[A]

Or they can have another job. It's not like they can't have another job. Maybe create some kind of advisor capacity where their knowledge is used.

[B]

Sure, go teach at a college, be on a commission. I don't care. But really, I think everyone feels that this is a problem. And I don't think we need cognitive decline testing. I think we just need retirement ages.

[A]

Yeah.

[B]

Next up.

[A]

Wait, hold on. I think this is a term and condition challenge. If we call people in elected office who have lost the election but are still serving out their term lame ducks, what would we call politicians that are, like, in their last year before retirement age? Because you'd have to think that if you were like, all right, I'm 69, and at 70, I'm not allowed to do this.

[B]

So it's like, lame horse. I don't know, like.

[A]

There has to be something very fun about, like, well, these people are like, well, if I'm never allowed to do this again, actually, we're going to do this. And you would get a lot of. Yeah, you would get a lot of really interesting policy from the people who were like, well, I'll never be elected.

[B]

So I don't have to run for reelection ever again.

[A]

Yeah, but we should think of a term for people who are about to hit their age limit in every political office of like, what we want to call them that aren't lame ducks, because lame duck's a thing. And this would be different.

[B]

Yeah. To ponder that. Okay.

[A]

Lame horse is pretty good. Okay. So I spiritual sponsors for this week. I have to do a bit of a brag as part of my spiritual sponsorship, but my spiritual sponsor is really satisfying. Jigsaw puzzles. I love doing them.

[B]

I really dislike jigsaw puzzles.

[A]

You dislike jigsaw puzzles? Oh, my God, I love them. So I know.

[B]

So does everyone in my family. Like.

[A]

And I pay for like high end ones too. Like, I'm like, let's. Yeah, let's order them from some bougie puzzle. Order for. Yeah, go all out. The big thing about moving to Houston is that we have a slightly bigger house. And so for the first time in like five years, I can actually comfortably do a puzzle.

[B]

But you can just leave it out.

[A]

Out. Because I can leave it out. Which I haven't been able to do since I've had children because they love puzzle pieces. My God. And they do not respect my puzzle making process.

[B]

Do you like a puzzle table that's got drawers for the pieces? No. One day my mother has one of those.

[A]

We've long had a kitchen table. And then our new house, we actually have like a breakfast table. It's separate from a different table. We've repurposed that table as like, you know, puzzles and in office and things like that. But yeah, this was all just a way for me to brag that I have two tables now. Not just the one table. I've got two tables. So I'm like basically paying the estate tax.

[B]

Nice. That's how rich I feel with your jigsaw puzzles.

[A]

With. With like my nice jigsaw puzzle.

[B]

Do you like a thousand piece, fifteen hundred piece? What's your.

[A]

Depends on the puzzle.

[B]

Puzzle.

[A]

But I tend to like the 500.

[B]

I did not expect that it depends on.

[A]

You didn't expect that. Depends on the puzzle. Because some of them, if they're really hard, the thousand piece is like, well, this is just a punishment that you gave yourself. Whereas if, like, they. If they have an interesting design that actually distinguishes between a thousand puzzle pieces, like, that's great. But I. I met a puzzle person once who was like, oh, yeah, it's just. It's a puzzle that's, like, all a fake of, like, it fades from, like, light pink to, like, red. And I was like, that is not okay. I do, like, paintings of flowers. It's just me on my, like, second table putting little pieces in together, and I'm like, I have achieved the American dream. Your spiritual sponsor.

[B]

My spiritual sponsor. Okay, first of all, Parker from Seattle, Washington, joined us as spiritual sponsor this week, and we want to thank Parker. Parker.

[A]

Thank you, Parker.

[B]

Thank you, Parker. My spiritual sponsor this week, actually, I took a carpool trip up to take a friend to a movie recently. And anyway, I wound up in the car with three guys that I've known since their 20s, and I had the best time. And, you know, just. They've all grown into just stand up humans and stand up dads, and it was really great. And I think about that a lot.

[A]

Dads. Oh, yeah. I. Dad humor. Dad jokes. Dad bod. Yeah, the whole everything. All the dad jokes and, like, the whole dad culture. I, for one, have gone so far deep in the. The social media algorithms of dad videos. They're really dumb social media videos that dads make of, like, training for Disney World. And it's them on a treadmill holding their children in, like, six different positions. And, like, I just. All of it. I love all of it. Oh, no, Robin. It's so funny. Or it's dads and gyms, and they're doing, like, the most insane exercises. And then it shows them, like, trying to, like, in the car while driving, hand something back to their children. So they're doing this, like, really absurd yoga as they're trying to hand something back. I mean, kids take a lot out of you and they give you a lot back, but you're not the same. And I appreciate that. The true transformation that it takes to become a dad. That's a great spiritual sponsor for the boys episode. Dads.

[B]

All right, that's it.

[A]

My snapping arms up. Sometimes we end the show when Robin looks at me blankly. Other times, I'm sitting here like a little lobster.

[B]

Can I snap now? Let me snap now. Please snap.

[A]

And thank you, Sophie.

[B]

We're, like, sending messages going, you guys have been talking for two hours.

[A]

Get off.

[B]

Stop talking.

[A]

Stop talking. Catherine and Robin, give us money. That's the show.