"The American Social Fabric"

I was struck by this statement by David Brooks:

"The American social fabric is now so depleted that even if manufacturing jobs miraculously came back we still would not be producing enough stable, skilled workers to fill them."

I'll leave the response to Dean Baker:

Five years ago we had two million more people employed in manufacturing than we do today. Has the social fabric become so depleted in this period that these people or others could now not fill these jobs if they came back? If Brooks really thinks that the ill effects of unemployment are that extreme he should be screaming for more stimulus in every column.

I think Brooks is wrong about the cause. It's not moral decay of the middle class, it's the desperation that comes with lack of opportunity, and the lock-in that comes with some of the solutions to that problem. But I will note that I have been emphasizing the social value of keeping people connected to the labor force through temporary jobs programs since the onset of the recession.

[For more on Brooks, see here (Krugman) and here (Mishel).]