Mike Rowe sounds the alarm on a declining work ethic: 'The reflection is kind of hideous'

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Mike Rowe: Get a job, any job, just do something

'How America Works' host Mike Rowe joined 'Tucker Carlson Tonight' to discuss a decline in the American work ethic and why a job instills purpose. 

FOX Business host Mike Rowe sounded the alarm on a lax work ethic in the labor force and a growing number of able-bodied men not seeking a job Thursday on "Tucker Carlson Tonight." 

Rowe said 7 million able-bodied men between the ages of 25 and 40 are not only not working, but also aren't even looking for a job. 

"That’s never happened in peacetime — ever," he said. 

The "How Things Work" host highlighted economist Nick Eberstadt's work, which looks at the labor market post COVID-19 and why employers are having trouble getting people to re-enter the workforce. 

In this April 25, 2011 photo, a "We're Hiring!" sign is shown at Office Depot in Mountain View, Calif. More people sought unemployment benefits last week, the second rise in three weeks, a sign the job market's recovery is slow and uneven.(AP Photo/Paul Sakuma) (AP)

"Economists like Nick Eberstadt take a dim view of it — they’re worried, and they’re trying to inject that into the conversation at a time when we’re still looking at the unemployment number as the true harbinger of what’s really going on," he told host Tucker Carlson. 

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Rowe said in Eberstadt's view, the unemployment number is a "depression era artifact." 

"We’re looking at the wrong thing. We’re looking at not what it means to have a bunch of people unemployed, but what does it mean to have a bunch of opportunity that nobody gives a damn about?"

Eberstadt explained in an op-ed for the Wall Street Journal that the country is facing an "unprecedented peacetime labor shortage, with employers practically begging for workers, while vast numbers of grown men and women sit on the sidelines of the economy." 

"Never has work been so readily available in modern America; never have so many been uninterested in taking it," he wrote. 

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Host Tucker Carlson asked what young men are doing with their time instead of actively looking for a job and participating in the workforce. 

"On average, over 2,000 hours a year on screens," Rowe responded. 

"You know, 4 million fewer people are in the workforce today than before the lockdowns and 4 million more jobs have opened up. It’s almost a perfect mirror image and the reflection is kind of hideous."