Renewing Work in America: Oren Cass

The American worker is in crisis and faces a very uncertain future. The COVID-19 pandemic led to a deep recession and millions of layoffs. 

Even before coronavirus— despite a decade of continuous economic growth— the percentage of Americans with jobs was well below normal levels. Many people had dropped out of the labor force, and gave up looking for work. For the first time in modern memory, life expectancy started to fall as substance abuse and obesity rates rose. 

Our guest, conservative author Oren Cass, argues that we've abandoned the American worker, and pushed four-college at the expense of more effective solutions.

In his widely-praised book, "The Once and Future Worker",  Oren argues that government policy should emphasize production, not consumption. His arguments were summarized  in The Atlantic.

"We've become obsessed with consumerism-- measuring everything in terms of consumers and living standards... In the process, we've forgotten that producing stuff is important too.”

Oren Cass is Executive Director of the new conservative think tank, American Compass.

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