Lowe's: $250M HVAC training investment
Lowe's has committed $250 million to training HVAC technicians as part of a broader corporate push to close the skilled trades gap.
Snapshot · The Shawn Ryan Show
#319 Mike Rowe - What Happened to the American Dream?
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Jul 6, 2026
Where this was said
The Unemployment Rate Is a Relic — and the Labor Participation Crisis
At 2:22:35 · chapter starts 2:16:35
Ryan presents Polymarket data showing a 17% chance unemployment reaches 5% in 2026. Rowe immediately reframes: why does the unemployment rate matter at all? He cites Nick Eberstadt's Men Without Work to argue the metric was designed for bread lines and tells us almost nothing in a world with 7.5 million open jobs. The data Eberstadt unearthed is striking: non-working men aren't volunteering, attending church, or participating in civic life — they're on screens for more than 2,000 hours per year, effectively working a full-time job in digital passivity. Rowe refuses to assign this to laziness (the right's preferred explanation) or inadequate wages (the left's), insisting both are partly right and both paint with too broad a brush. The real answer is complicated, and that's exactly why it's politically toxic. [1] — Mike Rowe "Non-working men: 2,000 hrs/yr on screens: Non-working able-bodied men spend an average of over 2,000 hours per year on screens — roughly th…" 2:19:25
Nobody Wants to Hear Both Sides of the Workforce Debate
The right wants Mike Rowe to say lazy people need their safety net removed. The left wants him to say greedy capitalists need to pay better wages. He thinks both are half right. And both sides get pissed when he won't simplify.
Non-working men: 2,000 hrs/yr on screens
Non-working able-bodied men spend an average of over 2,000 hours per year on screens — roughly the equivalent of a full-time job — according to economist Nick Eberstadt.
The Trades Lead to Small Business — Nobody Talks About That Path
A welding certificate leads to a plumbing cert, which leads to an HVAC cert, which leads to a van and a business. The trades aren't a destination — they're a launchpad for small business ownership that society completely ignores.
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