He's just old, tired, and out of shape, thinking that this is America in the hardcore industrial revolution days again.  I'm 34 years old.  When I was a teenager, I had plenty of physically demanding jobs that I was paid shit for, but I was also planting my face in the screen of a commodore 64 at age 12.  At age 14/15/16/17 it was the screen of a WIN95, WIN98, LINUX computer.  Or planting my face inside of one looking at the hardware.  By the age of 18, I didn't need a physically demanding job.  There were plenty of information technology jobs that paid well enough.  Some of those jobs were hauling around pc's and crt monitors and setting them up for client's (which was a bit physical), and that was crappy, but it was a start.  Between formal continuing education and self taught education as a teenager, I have been very successful in the information technology industry (planting my face into a screen) over the past 14 years.  There is a huge difference between planting yourself into the screen of angry birds and planting yourself into a screen that contains the knowledge that will help you build a better future.  You don't have to move thousands of pounds of rocks around to be successful.

Everyone shops for grocery's unless they don't eat or only eat out.  Most people don't make 100$/hour or even close to it.  And no one gets 200/365 vacation days per year.  I feel lucky to have 4 weeks of paid time off per year.