Kerby Anderson
In previous commentaries, I’ve talked about the seven million young men who are not working but also are not looking for work. Generation Z behind them has four million who have been given the term NEETs. NEET stands for “Not in Education, Employment, or Training.”
One article clarifies that “some Gen Zer’s may fall into this category because they are taking care of a family member,” but cautions that “many have become frozen out of the increasingly tough job market where white-collar jobs are becoming seemingly out of reach.”
Why has this happened? One political commentator blames how society values certain forms of employment. “In many cases, young people have been sent off to universities for worthless degrees which have produced nothing for them at all.” He concludes, “They would be much better off if they apprenticed to plumbers or electricians, they would be able to look forward to a much more abundant and satisfying life.”
Too much time has been focused on promoting a college degree as the only reliable path to financial success. Many of the students who enter the university do not finish. Even those that graduate lack the skills they will need in the 21st century. Just as robotics changed the nature of jobs in the factories, artificial intelligence is certain to alter the white-collar job market.
Besides a skills gap, there is a will gap. Many in this generation aren’t as work motivated as previous generations. The article laments that “Gen Z finds doomscrolling at home more enjoyable than navigating an economy completely different than what their teachers promised them.”
It is time to rethink how we prepare students for this changing economy. It is also time to challenge pastors, parents, and other leaders to encourage this generation to develop a work ethic.

Penna Dexter
It may not be their ideal life dream, but a Wall Street Journal analysis concludes that “American women have never been this resigned to staying single.”
In response to major demographic shifts and also divergent beliefs about what a family should look like, today’s single women are less anxious to get married than they used to be and less interested in marriage than their male peers.
In her piece, titled “American Women Are Giving Up on Marriage,” Rachel Wolfe, economy reporter for the Journal, writes “A rise in earning power and a decline in social stigma for being single has allowed more women to be choosey.” She cites a 2023 survey of over 5000 U.S. adults conducted by Pew Research Center in which “48% of women said that being married was not too or not at all important for a fulfilling life, compared with 39% of men — up from 31% and 28% in 2019.”
In an American Enterprise Institute survey of college-educated women, also done in 2023, half of respondents said they’re single because they haven’t found anyone who meets their expectations.
Throughout her article, Rachel Wolfe presents stats that show that American women of marriageable age are better educated and have better career prospects than men. She quotes sociology professor Brad Wilcox, a fellow at the Institute for Family Studies who says, “people prefer to date in terms of comparable education or income.”
Lyman Stone, a researcher at IFS points out that “Men’s odds of being in a relationship today are still highly correlated with their income.” In an interview for an article in The Atlantic, he said “a lot of young men today just don’t look like what women have come to think of as ‘marriage material’.”
The bitter fruit of 60’s feminism is that many women really do want marriage, but they don’t think they need it.

Kerby Anderson
Rich Lowry proclaims that “Safety is the Worst Word in the English Language.” You might think that statement and commentary are strange unless you have been paying attention to the release of the “Twitter Files.” Safety has been used as a justification for the censoring of Twitter posts and the de-platforming of certain people who post tweets that some of the leadership at Twitter considered harmful or unsafe.
He is not the only person to focus on the misuse of the word safety. In previous commentaries, I quoted Jonathan Haidt, who was on my radio program to talk about his book, The Coddling of the American Mind. One of the key points in his book was the “Untruth of Fragility: What Doesn’t Kill You Makes You Weaker.”
He argues in the book that the younger generation has been protected by a culture that promotes “safetyism.” It has become a cult of safety that is obsessed with eliminating threats (whether real or imagined) to the point where fragility becomes expected and routine.
Concerns about safety morphed from a desire to protect bicycle riders with helmets to protecting students and the public from harmful ideas. Professors issued “trigger warnings” to “show students that you care about their safety.” The former Global Head of Trust & Safety at Twitter used concerns about safety to protect readers from encountering offensive speech.
Rich Lowry adds one more ingredient to this toxic mix. The 2016 election of Donald Trump was supposedly won because of misinformation. Once you considered that a threat, the “license to censor became broad and far-reaching.” That’s why Rich Lowry says safety has become the worse word in the English language.