The author is very blase about describing these men as having "chosen to not seek work". Discouraged workers are a well-known phenomenon in labour economics - people who have given up looking for work because they believe that they have no realistic chance of finding it.

America might have plenty of job vacancies, but it has very few vacancies for unskilled men living in rustbelt towns. For these men, the obstacles to finding work are often overwhelming. When graduates are struggling to find work, the prospects for socially disadvantaged people are very bleak. If someone has limited literacy, mental health problems or a felony conviction, I can't really blame them for giving up on the prospect of finding work.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Discouraged_worker