Mike Rowe: Americans Don’t Value Work Anymore

Dirty Jobs’ Mike Rowe believes that many Americans are dissatisfied with their lives because they no longer appreciate the intrinsic value of work.

As The Daily Caller’s Amber Athey reports, in a pre-recorded interview with Fox News’ Tucker Carlson that aired Friday, Rowe accused the American media of convincing people that they will be happier if they choose to work less.

“Look, the best-selling books right now in the self-help section and in general claim to have the solution for how you can work less,” Rowe explained.

“Most of the commercials on TV ask a tacit question, you know, how could you be happier? And the answer, of course, is retire a little sooner or work 35 instead of 40 hours.”

However, Rowe argued, the act of doing work brings value and purpose to people’s lives, making them happier overall.

“What you said is the business of working has an underlying inherent value to it,” Rowe told The Daily Caller co-founder.

“I do believe deeply that’s 100 percent true.”

“If there is one enduring lesson from Dirty Jobs, it’s the fact that those people as a group are having a better time and were more connected to their work than the vast majority of people I know who make great white collar livings,” he asserted.

“It’s just an inconvenient truth, if you will pardon the bromide, but it’s out there and there is a lot of hope in it.”

And this anti-work rhetoric begins at an early age, as Rowe previously concluded, millions of reasonable people – Republicans and Democrats alike – are worried that our universities are doing a poor job of preparing students for the real world. They’re worried about activist professors, safe spaces, the rising cost of tuition, a growing contempt for history, and a simmering disregard of the first amendment.

These people are concerned that our universities – once beacons of free speech – now pander to a relatively small percentage of students who can’t tolerate any political opinion that challenges their own.

And they’re concerned – deeply concerned – that millions of good jobs are currently vacant that don’t require a four-year degree, or any of the catastrophic debt that comes with it.