More and more men are dropping out of the U.S. workforce, leaving the nation far behind its international competitors in male workforce participation and drawing concerns from members of Congress at a hearing Wednesday that found no consensus on solutions.

Twelve percent of working-age men in the U.S. are either unemployed or not looking for work, Rep. Adrian Smith, a Nebraska Republican, said at the start of a hearing he convened.

The male inactivity rate has grown even as the nation’s unemployment rate has fallen to 4.3 percent in May from 10 percent in late 2009, suggesting that men are either unable to find jobs or not trying.

“The steady decline is most troubling because so few people seem to be discussing it,” said Smith, chairman of the House Human Resources Subcommittee. “Yet it has a profound impact on our society, the economy, and individual and family well-being.”

The U.S. ranks second-to-last in male labor-force participation among the 35 industrialized nations that make up the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development, Smith said. Italy, with an 11.1 percent unemployment rate, ranks first.

Lawmakers and witnesses at Wednesday’s hearing seemed to agree on some contributing factors, such as the growing number of men who lack education or training, or who have criminal records. But they disagreed on the role played by what Smith called “a growing dependence on public-benefit programs.”

Brent Orrell, a former official in the administration of President George W. Bush and a vice president of management-consulting firm ICF International of Virginia, cited a study that found men not in the labor force spent 43 minutes a day working or looking for work—and nearly eight hours on “socializing, relaxing and leisure.”

“At least 7 million prime working-age men are out of the labor force, creating a double burden of untapped economic potential and higher social welfare costs,” Orrell said.

Rising Barriers Blamed

But Rep. Danny Davis of Illinois, the subcommittee’s ranking Democrat, disputed the notion that the unemployed are coddled and lazy.

“These men desperately want to work, but they face multiple barriers—low education levels, substance abuse, exposure to violence and trauma,” Davis said.

The percentage of men out of the workforce has grown steadily since at least the late 1960s, when the inactivity rate was just 4 percent, Smith said.

Republican Rep. Jackie Walorski said her Indiana district has a labor shortage that employers say results from job applicants failing drug-screening tests “due to the onslaught of opioid addiction.”

The hearing’s star witness, Tyrone Ferrens, described how a job training program in Baltimore helped him shed a life of crime and drugs to become an electrician able to support himself and his mother and become engaged in the lives of his adult children.

Ferrens, who has dyslexia and ADHD, said he struggled in a school that placed “such emphasis on going to college” and ended up becoming a drug dealer who was arrested 14 times. “Even now, 10 years later, it’s a huge obstacle,” Ferrens said, noting how his criminal record disqualifies him from many jobs.

In response to questions from Rep. Mike Bishop, a Michigan Republican, Ferrens said he looked into getting his record expunged but encountered “a lot of bureaucracy. It just got extremely frustrating.”

Anthony Lowery, policy director at Chicago’s Safer Foundation, which helps convicts get jobs, noted that a law enacted last month in Illinois enables nonviolent and nonsexual ex-offenders to have their records sealed from view by prospective employers. A companion law signed by Gov. Bruce Rauner, a Republican, automatically expunges juvenile arrest records for nonviolent and nonsexual offenses after a period of time.

“That will go a long way to resolving issues,” Lowery said.