Young Men Face a Crisis

[applegrove]

Young Men Face a Crisis

August 15, 2025 at 12:00 pm EDT By Taegan Goddard 272 Comments

https://politicalwire.com/2025/08/15/young-men-face-a-crisis/

Robert Putnam and Richard Reeves: “Many boys and men are struggling today… in an America… disrupted by technological change, immigration and growing inequality. Since 2010, suicide rates among young men have risen by a third — they are now higher than they are among middle-aged men. The share of college degrees going to men has fallen to 41 percent, lower than the women’s share in 1970. One in 10 men aged 20 to 24 is effectively doing nothing — neither enrolled in school nor working. That’s twice the rate in 1990. This crisis demands a response equivalent to what the Progressive era delivered, not just in public policy but equally important, from our civic institutions…”

“This male malaise is not just about jobs and diplomas. It is also a crisis of connection, as men and boys are increasingly detached from civic, familial and social life. They are lost, in part because they are lonely: 25 percent of boys and men aged 15 to 34 told Gallup they had experienced loneliness “a lot” on the previous day. One in seven young men reports that he has no close friends, up from 3 percent in 1990. Two thirds of men under the age of 30 think that ‘no one cares if men are okay.'”

“Consider the despair implicit in that last statistic.”

[Norrrm]

1. 1+

[JT45242]

2. For over a generation females attending two or four years schools exceeded men...the hidden stem economy was lost t

First, the fastest growing, high paying, most resilient to layoffs jobs in this country are the "hidden stem" jobs that only require a 1-2 year certificate or associate degree. Men aren't pursuing them like women and haven't for a generation.

Add to that the right wing victim echo chamber...'immigrants took our jobs' 'it's harder to be a white man than anything else' 'affirmitive action hires unqualified women and minorities over white males ' spew constantly...first on hate radio, then YouTube, Instagram, etc.

All lies that these young white men buy into because it is easier to see yourself as a victim rather than the reality that you are lazy, dumb, it both.

This is pushed by the Uber wealthy because it hides...
1. Immigrant did not take a job from you. A robot did or a worker in another country because both make the rich old white dudes who own the company more money.
2. Affirmative action pre ends UNQUALIFIED whites from taking jobs from qualified women and minorities. Again, rich dudes want to protect their kids and the kids of their friends to keep the money in the family or so others owe you a favor. Legacy admission ...all the younger Bush boys in public. Grassley and his lineage.
3. Even with more women than men in virtually every STEM field or advanced degree field like law (except engineering) they still make about seventy cents on the dollar of a man with the same job and education.

Of course, these educated women make more than uneducated white boys (I refuse to call people who don't grow up and take responsibility for their own lives men). So, they think white men have it worse.

They are purposefully undereducated so that they will bite against their own economic self interest.

If you want a good example... Go to any school district that id struggling financially. The rich will rally behind saving sports but not science labs, advanced classes, or fine arts. Dumb jocks make dumb voters. If they were trained to be bullied with no sympathy, even better.

We need more, give Rogan millions to drum them up. Find other degenerates willing to peddle lies to make a buck.

You want to see real loneliness or suicide rates, look at what happens to LGBTQ+ teens at the hands of these bullies. Especially trans kids who have one of the highest if not the highest suicide rates in the country.

[applegrove]

4. Yes. Trans kids have it the worst but the solution

for these lost men/boys is not to ignore it but renewed civic engagement and mentorship by successful men (successful in being a man I mean, be it a car mechanic or a male nurse or a lawyer). Around the 1920s and 1930s my great grandfather would have young men come over after dinner and go to his library with him to talk over the issues of the day (in Canada). That is how it was done.. giving back. My great grandfather was a federal justice and before that a Member of Parliament (plus as an MP and MPP for 20 years he made virtually no money as he got paid a pittance, got a free rail pass and had to pay for two rented households, one in Ottawa, one in his riding of Halifax South. He never owned a home and his widow had a hard time making ends meet after he died. She lived with her daughter who worked full time, but still my married grandmother helped her mom out). He stood in as a judge trying Supreme Court cases when there was not a full slate. He had lots of experience. (His wife and two daughters were great readers too and he encouraged that and they talked politics and history at the dinner table as we did growing up - Ottawa is such a political city). But his way of giving back was to start an ongoing discussion with different young men. His grandson, my dad, did that with me when I got home from university. Nothing like a one on one mentorship though it can take many forms.

[Raven123]

8. I concur with your comment re: sports being prioritized

I know of one school that had no problem raising over $800,000 for bleachers and another received a donation of over $100,000 to help resurface a track. Meantime the latter has a school with a roof that leaks.

A school system passed a levy for the purpose of upgrading athletics and recreational fields, but not to pay teachers, some of whom left. Now they want another levy for “operating expenses.”

[meadowlander]

9. I'm sure I'll take flak, but I will say basically all the young men I know spend 8+ hours a day playing video games.

I like video games too but it's not exactly a recipe for self-esteem to answer "what did you do on the weekend?" on Monday morning at work with "I barely managed to feed, sleep or wash myself because I was glued to a computer monitor for 56 hours straight".

The attention economy is making us all a bit stupider and fatter and sadder but it has hit a number of the men I know the hardest. And the more disconnected they feel from other people, the more they retreat into a 24/7 fantasy world for the constant low level dopamine hit whether it's movies or TV shows or video games or porn or some combination. Why try to make friends or get a date when you can get 40% of the happiness for 0% of the effort by just plugging into your preferred method of electronic escapism?

And while I feel some sympathy, it's also really hard not to get exasperated by stories like this when they crop up (let's be honest) pretty regularly. If "nobody cares about mens' suffering" it's surprising how much it is discussed everywhere all the time and has been for the last 30 years.

And the solution is kind of painfully straightforward. Get away from your screens, go for a walk, get a hobby that requires interacting with other people, crack a book, plant something, do something in service to someone else. Stop listening to the dipshits trying to convince you you aren't "Alpha" enough so they can sell you something.

We all know what makes us feel better when we feel lonely and depressed. Go do those things instead of moaning about how mean society is to you because more women are getting college degrees now, statistically they live longer, and nobody wants to date you. Your attitudes and thoughts and choices are what are creating this reality for you, not feminism or woke people or DEI or immigrants.

You know what is making you sad? Capitalism finally getting around to treating you 1/10th as badly as it has been treating women for the past 250 years. But the secret is you can choose not to let it. So go do that instead of picking at the same scab over and over again because it's easier to blame others than to solve your own problems.

[Johnny2X2X]

17. Your post sums up a lot of my thoughts

The young men crisis is really just a leveling of the playing field and when the privileged have to play fair, they cry persecution.

How about we just let women run things for a while? Wouldn't that be something? I'd bet we'd get a more just, fair, and healthy society immediately.

[RandomNumbers]

18. Mostly correct, but not #1

Democrats need to learn to comprehend a more nuanced understanding of reality than platitudes like "an immigrant didn't take your job".

Yes, in certain fields, I can absolutely attest that some immigrants have at times taken jobs that COULD have gone to non-immigrants. See: H-1B visa program. That is EXACTLY what that visa program does, that is WHY it exists. Americans are not "too unskilled" for the job; they are merely less controllable; and there is a whole industry around the H-1B immigrant pipeline to this country. That industry is somewhat diminished over the past decade as it has become possible to just use "a worker in another country". Not all IT jobs can be done from those other countries. This creates a new position for the person in that skill who lives in America but "can communicate well" with the overseas shop. (Two guesses who fills those new positions - and the first one doesn't count).

You are totally correct that it is all "because both make the rich old white dudes who own the company more money."

But stop with the "immigrants don't take jobs". It is not factually accurate, and ignores those of us who live this experience.

[Solly Mack]

3. I read the NYTimes article.

I'll share it with my husband later and he and I will discuss it.

Article concludes that men need to step up and become involved.

I'll add that it matters what kind of men step up and become involved. You know, not Ted Cruz or Elon Musk or Joe Rogan. (as examples of Nope)

Thank you for posting.

[Skittles]

11. yup

a lot of these "disaffected" young men are gravitating to complete fucking assholes like Musk and Rogan

[usonian]

5. It's a broken culture.

I could go on and on, but simply, western culture is destructive, needlessly competitive and individualistic. So much so that young people, who are ALWAYS looking for purpose and meaning in life, are bamboozled.

Power exists elsewhere. This world and life are damned. Escape is the best you can do. So, people are told.
This is disempowerment, and society uses it to exploit people.

Not to get in hot water, I'll give a philosophy, found in the Lotus Sutra, of empowerment and personal growth and satisfaction.

can discuss outside this forum.

[MrWowWow]

6. Blame it on the Stones

--especially that Jagger!

.

[hunter]

7. I was completely loony-tunes as a young man.

I quit high school, tested into college, was "asked" to take time outs from college twice, punched my dad in the face and ended up homeless until I found shelter in the garden shed of a PTSD Vietnam War Veteran, was in an abusive relationship which I quit by jumping out of her moving car, drove all over California as an anti-nuclear activist, and had quite a few jobs involving either heavy manual labor or lab work.

I don't know what personality traits I had that convinced people to look after me. At times even the police looked after me when I was at my worst.

Part of it was, yes, I was a white guy, but I think another part was that I was always putting myself out there even in times I just wanted to be invisible, maybe especially those times. I didn't have any patience sitting at home, especially not my parents' home which was always a crowded place of tremendous chaos.

Government programs work, those that get young people out of the house, these lost young men especially. The State of California and a few Federal grants paid for most of my college, I paid for housing and various student fees. That got me out of the house.

My kids went off to college. But that's not for everyone. My dad and my father-in-law volunteered for military service hoping that volunteering would give them some choices where they ended up rather than waiting to be drafted. My dad was a "Radar O'Reilly" Army medical clerk, my father-in-law was a Navy Corpsman assigned to the Marines. It was just dumb luck they didn't end up on the battlefields of Korea. My dad and my father-in-law both went to college afterwards, much of that paid for by the government. My children did not get that kind of government support.

If my kids hadn't gone off to college, and hadn't been itching to get away from home regardless, I don't know what I would have recommended. "Get a job, kid!" ain't enough, especially when jobs are scarce.

Our society could be far more aggressive with programs like the Civilian Conservation Corps of the 'thirties, only echoes of which remain today, such as the California Conservation Corps or similar programs in other states.

https://ccc.ca.gov/

[betsuni]

10. In Japan NEETs: Not in Education, Employment or Training. Hikikomori is the extreme type.

My husband's niece (she just quit her job) and nephew visited today. Now in their early thirties, zero interest in dating, let alone getting married or having children, live at home. Not economic, can't blame Western culture.

[Renew Deal]

12. This issue is not limited by race or nationality

It makes upheaval and war more likely.

[Lancero]

13. They have plenty of opportunity to become respectable men, but actively choose not to. Incels figured out how to...

Spin their bullshit in such a way that people will lap it up and feel sorry for them.

[tanyev]

14. They aren't rushing to the newly available farm and construction jobs?

Huh.

🤔

[JanMichael]

15. One solution for a lonely individual young male is screamingly obvious.

Go to a university or community college.

Try to not be a dick, clean yourself up - ie. Start reading books, run and work out some, find the liberal and anarchist groups, go see live music, have good hygiene, and the odds of a date are now much better than 30 years ago. It was a 50/50 ratio in 1990 now it's 60/40 women to men.

Yes the rules have changed, and for the better I might add. "Me too" may have faded a bit but maybe the best thing to happen in decades.

Ask before you kiss, go with the flow, don't just drop your pants, and no means no. Don't be a creep and the world is a brighter happier place.

It actually worked that way in 1990 too.

Edit: I forgot to add that probably 50% of young males are in that stupid manosphere now so it's even easier and the ratio is even higher. In college they might only be 25%, but they are not competition.

[hunter]

19. "Don't be a creep" has made the world a happier place throughout human history.

Likewise, male dominance and general creepiness have been sold as virtues by those seeking to increase their own political power.

Convince a bunch of lonely young males that you will lead them to some kind of "greatness" and they will vote for you, fight for you, and oppress others for you.

Misogynistic male dominated gangs exist at every level of human society. Without a continuous supply of new recruits these gangs would fade away.

One of those gangs, the largest in the United States, is the modern Republican Party. Trump is its figurehead, a man with a well documented history of abusing women and girls, a man who directly appeals to the weakest men among us.

If we teach our young people, especially young men, to be strong and resilient, to be thoughtful and kind, and to treat others with respect, the modern Republican Party loses its base.

This sort of education is not restricted to college or universities. We have to chip away at the forces that are isolating young people from ordinary human interaction. One shouldn't have to join a gang or a cult to escape feelings of loneliness.

[JanMichael]

20. I wasn't suggesting university was for everyone.

Community college on the other hand might be. Although only for 18 and up or maybe 17 and up.

That manosphere thing has to be combated somehow. I don't care if it's hackers or competing sites.

Did you see Adolescence on Netflix? That was a 12 or 13 year old issue/murder. So obviously university isn't the answer there.

The overall message should be - don't be a fucking creep.

[MineralMan]

16. A crisis, eh?

In the early 1940s, young men faced an actual crisis. There was WWII going on and they were needed to fight fascism.
In the 1960s, young men were being drafted and sent to Vietnam to fight a war they couldn't even understand.

Now, apparently, they're "lonely." Well, then...what are we going to do about that, or is that up to the young men themselves?

Life is crisis, boys!