This article originally appeared in The Detroit News April 22, 2025.

Gov. Gretchen Whitmer called out the plight of young men in society in her recent State of the State address. Single women, she said, are three times more likely to buy a house today than single men. Whitmer also decried a gender gap in the Michigan Reconnect program, where female college enrollment outpaces male enrollment two-to-one.

Before Michigan launches any new program, it’s worth evaluating what problem our society is facing, and whether government policy has harmed the people we’re now trying to help.

“I know it’s hard to get ahead right now,” Whitmer said directly to young men as a group during her address. “But I promise you, no matter how hard life might get, there is always a way out and a way up.”

This focus is new for Whitmer — in her previous six annual addresses, she never mentioned the challenges young men face. But she is not alone. Other Democratic governors, including Maryland Gov. Wes Moore and Connecticut Gov. Ned Lamont, are addressing these issues, too.

There are reasons to question this gloomy scenario. Mark J. Perry, emeritus economics professor at University of Michigan-Flint, argues households today are more prosperous than people realize. In 1967, just 13% of U.S. households had incomes of $100,000 (in 2023 dollars). By 2023, that figure had climbed to 41%. Jeremy Horpedahl, an adjunct scholar with the Cato Institute, has debunked the idea that younger generations are falling behind Generation X or the Baby Boomers.

But concern about young men as a demographic goes beyond politicos.

Richard Reeves worked at the Brookings Institution before launching the American Institute for Boys and Men. His organization is asking why men are four times more likely to die by suicide in America, or why 71% of opioid overdose deaths in America are men.

Similarly, Nicholas Eberstadt, a political economist with the American Enterprise Institute, has studied the quiet but devastating trend of working age men leaving the workforce. In his 2016 book “Men Without Work: America’s Invisible Crisis,” Dr. Eberstadt documented a decades-long trend of able-bodied men leaving the workforce. In fact, he found that the work rate for American men 25-54 was lower in 2015 than it was at the end of the Great Depression.

When I spoke to Eberstadt recently, he was gratified that elected leaders like Whitmer recognize a problem. “If they recognize brute facts, all to the good,” he said.

Eberstadt cautioned against new government programs or incentives that could make the policy worse. So what should policymakers do?

“If you could push one button, it would be disability,” he said. That is, stop providing perverse incentives that discourage employment.

Furthermore, it is a “scandal,” Eberstadt said, that a student can graduate high school without a practical skill. He recommended vocational training and apprenticeships as an alternative to college.

Another harmful government policy is barring people with a court conviction from working in certain industries, Eberstadt said. Policymakers should consider “the millions and millions living in the shadows” because of a criminal record.

In her speech, Whitmer said, “The last thing any of us wants is a generation of young men falling behind their fathers and grandfathers.”

Is that really what’s happening?

This is the first challenge of policymaking: Is there a problem we can actually solve through policy? Then, before we jump to a solution, we should evaluate if earlier policy decisions are making the problem worse. Finally, once we’ve defined the problem, who should solve it? Not necessarily the state. The decision to attend college, pursue a trade, or buy a home is after all, a personal choice.

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