[panny]

>As the piece mentions, young men are "staying on the sidelines" versus engage in low wage, low status restaurant work (in this context).

Why do you think young men would work at a restaurant? They don't make tips the way pretty young girls do. Restaurants certainly don't pay a living wage.

Have you tried ending tip culture? If you did that, you might find more young men willing to work there and more patrons willing to eat there once the expectation of 30% tips are gone.

[toomuchtodo]

Will young men support progressive policy? Their only chance at economic success in a punishing macro? To be determined.

[bluefirebrand]

The last 15 or so years of progressive politics are doing nothing for young men except demand they be "allies" so it's absolutely not surprising that young men have largely moved Right

The Right is promising to make them great. It may be a lie, but it's a better message than what the Left has for them

Edit: and before you get the wrong idea, I'm pretty progressive. I have consistently voted left my entire life. This is stuff I view as weakness on my own side, not something I'm projecting on my opponents

[toomuchtodo]

Organizing and unionizing, focusing on affordability, etc are what I’m referring to. “Good manufacturing jobs” ain’t coming back. If you want a good job today, it’s only coming through collective action to push wages up to living wages. There won’t be some magic that instantiates millions of good jobs for young men needing them, and even those with degrees are facing peril and economic insecurity. The jobs that exist are the jobs young men have to crank towards livability. Universal healthcare is a component of affordability, especially as it relates to family forming and the cost of US healthcare.

With structural demographics what they are, and labor slowly becoming more scarce year after year, the time is right. They took their chance on the Right, and polling shows some amount of buyer’s remorse.

https://www.cnn.com/2026/03/06/economy/young-men-joblessness

[bluefirebrand]

I agree with you. There's unfortunately not a lot of will for unionization among anyone I've spoken to about it, though. Besides, companies are very ruthless when it comes to union busting. Especially in software, how do you unionize when your company will just fire you all and hire overseas workers to replace you overnight?

I am with you. I want to believe we can figure this out and collectively claw back from the corpos. I'm just discouraged because I do not think it's likely to actually happen in my lifetime

[toomuchtodo]

If you're tired, learn to rest, not quit. Success is a long way off, and the work ahead is measured in decades. It's a marathon, not a sprint.

[cmxch]

Not with the last 20 years in good memory.

You would have to openly make them a protected class before that would happen.

[toomuchtodo]

I suppose the lost generation Wikipedia page will write itself then.

https://www.nytimes.com/2026/03/29/style/marriage-decline-de...

https://www.pewresearch.org/short-reads/2023/06/28/a-record-...

https://www.pewresearch.org/short-reads/2023/02/08/for-valen...

https://www.morganstanley.com/ideas/womens-impact-on-the-eco...

[hackable_sand]

Ew