[dagw]

But would his wife be able to find a job there? Moving across the country so that he could get a low paying job, while his wife instead ends either unemployed or with a much worse job than the one she currently has is hardly an optimal solution. By the sound of it they are making just about enough money to get by as it is, so uprooting the entire family in search of something else is a pretty high risk strategy,

[yummyfajitas]

Maybe he should move, find something, and let the wife follow once that situation stabilizes. I know a number of people who's father worked in the gulf and came home twice a year - they turned out just fine. My dad lives in Vegas (that's where his family is) and works in CA, driving across the desert twice a week.

My most recent hire moved from Chennai to Pune for work. Trump wants to build a giand wall of ice and magic to stop Mexicans from moving to a country where the jobs are, in spite of them not speaking the language or being legally permitted to work.

There are plenty of options. It sounds like this guy is just unwilling to do them, just as he's unwilling to do manual labor.

An honest title: "9M American men in prime working age are unwilling to find work, and I'm one of them."

[dagw]

Or "A subset (of unknow size) of 9M American men in prime working age find that not working is currently their best option, but cannot admit this to anyone (even themselves) due to the social stigma attached, and it's doing terrible things to their psyche".

I bet if this dude got up tomorrow and declared to the world "I am, for the time being, an unemployed stay at home dad and not ashamed of this" that he would not only feel a lot better about himself, but his family life would end up being a lot happier as well. Who knows, perhaps his friends won't even end up shunning him.