No one wants to work 3 jobs to get where their grandpa did with one job.

Low wages, high cost of living. Working 40+ hours a week and still can't afford bare necessities? It's ridiculous.

Everyone wants to work. But not for slave labor wages.

I'm a retail worker here in the UK. I have heard the "No one wants to work" anymore arguments, and they're kind of half right! People are fed up with being exploited, being paid a shitty wage, crappy work conditions, no sick pay, and if they do happen to phone in sick, it results in a written warning! I have seen new staff threatened by managers over work performance on a daily basis! Workers are treated like shit! This is not the way to inspire people to work hard and aspire to bigger things! The company I once worked for gave staff a pay rise of £0.54p in eight years, whilst they raked in millions! The CEO of the company had an average take-home of seven million pounds a year! I could barely afford to put petrol in my car, working my ass off and that Dude sat behind a desk, creaming off the top! Plus, having to work holidays such as Easter Monday and Tuesday, Boxing day and May-day! Boxing day, especially since the run up to Christmas, people spend like crazy and stores decide to open the day after Christmas day and people barely get any time with their families! It's pure greed, and yet, there's little or no reward for anyone who isn't higher up in the corporate hierarchy! If my own experience is one example, the millions of people who work in these jobs have many more examples that are worse! So, yeah, there's a reason why people don't want to work anymore and if employers want staff to work in their establishments, pay them better and offer them better benefits and conditions and not treat them like a conveyer belt of expendable meat! I've often told younger staff that once upon a time, these jobs were once jobs for life. Not anymore. Companies don't give a flying fuck about you, all they see is the bottom line and that sweet, sweet bonus they get for towing the line! It has to stop, enough is enough!!

When I hear "no one wants to work anymore" I actually hear "no one wants to accept my shitty pay and horrible benefits package"

Myth: "No one wants to work anymore" Reality: "No one wants to pay for labor anymore"

What employers don’t understand is you want people to do the job of three people and pay them the bare minimum. When I worked at Target and Walgreens they each wanted their employees to work the job of three people and pay them minimum wage. I brought that up and said “If you want me to do the job of three people, you’d have to pay me money re than $17.75 an hour. I would need $35 an hour.” You want me to do the job of three people, pay me what I’m worth.

It should be "people don't want to be slaves anymore! " Instead of "people don't want to work anymore" Many people, particularly the younger generation, use a range of unconventional methods of earning a living these days. I worked in the retail for over 10 years, so l'm quite happy that this is taking place. For too long, retail bullied me and a lot of my employees/colleagues saying things like "if you don't like it,go; another like you is waiting to get into your position " since the COVID, I found a job that helps me grow, pays me more and Values Me, Social media cleared the way for a rapidly expanding market, and it taught us a lot. 2020 was my turning point, and investment helped alot!

Last week I was riding the country bus and the driver was complaining about the national bus driver shortage. He kept complaining that _"People don't want to work! They get money not to so we need to stop that!"_ I asked him how the pay was and he said it was okay but the health insurance was so horrible that he wouldn't even work there if he wasn't on his wife's insurance. I ask why new drivers would want the job with such bad benefits and his brain stuttered to a halt.

I am a senior citizen who applied ALL OVER at places with those "now hiring" signs. What a bitter joke. After 70, I am now unemployable anywhere. After my rent went up by $200, I just had to get used to losing everything. None of those businesses with the fake hiring signs were seriously looking for help. And their whining is sickening. Let them fall.

It should be "people don't want to be slaves anymore! " Instead of "people don't want to work anymore" Many people, especially the younger generation, are engaging in a variety of unorthodox activities to make a living. Side hustles and hobbies, Content-creating online. Social media is a fast growing market rn I applaud them. 2020 was my turning point and investing put me on track.

I've also noticed at my last 3 jobs (all since COVID began) that every job I started, conditions and pay were great, but both deteriorated the longer you worked there. Shifts would get canceled, promised pay raises and bonuses evaporated, you became de-facto on call, etc. It was like they always wanted fresh blood and once you settled in you were encouraged to job hop.

I don’t see America as a wealthy nation. I see America as an impoverished nation with a small elite group of billionaires in control of everything.

Exactly: No one wants to be exploited any more.

It's not that people don't want to work, it's that people are tired of being taken advantage of.

I’m 56 and worked since I was 14. My last few jobs had so much overtime and working weekends. I feel like I wasted so much of my life making big companies rich. I applaud the younger generation for standing up and not giving in to long hours and low wages. You’re missing so much life chasing a dollar.

I've been hearing no one wants to work anymore for 63 years. In that time I've worked for screaming jerks and people that treated their workers like family. What I've always dreaded is a insecure middle manager on a power trip. Someone given a dollar an hour raise and double the responsibility. I think having that pressure just isn't worth it. I still work for a jerk, but I am enjoying being self-employed.

The fact they can go on TV and say unemployment pays more than the work available yet not see how dystopian that is is the height of corporate hubris.

Totally agree. This man hit it right on the head. Doing a job that doesn't get you out of poverty yet makes fortunes for higher up's, that depend on you, is an insult. Exploitation at its finest.

Creating wealth entails establishing positive routines, such as consistently setting aside funds at regular intervals for sound investments. Financial management is a vital subject that many avoid, often leading to future regrets.

I've worked hard enough for people that love to say I'm replaceable but when I leave all I hear is how everything turned into a shit show and their wanted list has my position open for damn near a year. The disrespect, the tone deaf requests, the ignored suggestions on improvements that get used months later with credit stolen... it's not really a surprise we all collectively snapped.

Employer: I want someone with a masters degree and 10 years of experience. Worker: OK - I have those qualifications. Employer: Great. How does $40,000 a year sound? Worker: I'm going to have to pass on that offer. Kids in high school make more than that working part time at McDonald's. Employer: No one wants to work anymore!

Shareholders do not want to work. They want to be paid handsome dividends for doing no work, exploiting those who actually do the work. That aggression must not be allowed to stand, man.

Always remember one thing about corrupt politicians and corporations .... they need us we don't need them

All of the unemployed people I know are submitting between 20-90 applications a month and either not hearing back at all, receiving "thanks but no thanks" emails, or getting interviews that lead to no offers. It seems that most employers are looking for the same 3 people in their area, and the rest of the available workers are S.O.L. We *want* and *need* to work. To pay bills, to feel like we're contributing to something bigger than ourselves, to remain engaged meaningfully in broader society, and to maintain dignity and self-reliance. But the messaging is that we're lazy and entitled. I work extremely hard, every day, and to tell me I'm lazy and entitled because I'm unemployed right now is so utterly disheartening and insulting. And WRONG. Thank you Robert and team for producing this - it's what we're feeling and experiencing, but we're being used as a political pawn for the GOP.

Making the poor suffer for being poor is the Victorian Workhouse model. Minimum wage has morphed into the least amount of money I can legally get away with paying instead of being the minimum wage necessary to support a family. I recently saw a meme that asked, "If fast-food wages are because its a job for kids, why are they open during school hours?".

No one wants to be treated like shit by employers anymore

“No one wants to work for me” “Are you going to raise wages?” “WHAT?”

If there's such a labor shortage why are tech jobs requiring seven interviews over a 4-month period? Why does the application to work at Target or Walmart involve 3 hours of cheesy multiple choice questions about stealing things from the workplace? Why can't I apply at home Depot without uploading a resume, typing out my resume, and then uploading a 2-minute video explaining my resume?

The greed of corporations, landlords, and employers is the real problem. But heaven forbid the establishment media frames it like that. Thank you for spelling it out so clearly.

First, Capitalists saw that there was a demand to increase wages following the pandemic. They purposefully ignored it, running lean, while putting up signs that said "No one wants to work anymore". They knew the issue was wages. They wanted to turn the public against the workers, pressure them into taking barely subsistence wages again. It didn't work. Then Capitalists raised wages slightly. But in response they raised prices massively. They said this was a result of having to raise wages, except they also made record profits. This convinced the Fed that there was massive inflation, so they increase the interest rates, and the inflation successfully devalues the increase in wages. But that still wasn't enough. Then, Capitalist hedge fund managers engineered a wave of layoffs for tech companies. This increased the stock value of all those tech companies. It also made the labor market look much more insecure, decreasing the number of people looking to jump around companies, and reducing pressure to increase wages. The whole point, of all of it, was to suppress wages.

Yeah I'm tired of hearing it too. I want to work, but I want to be paid a decent wage for the work I am doing. I'm tired of working so many hours and then having almost nothing to show for it.

My husband had this happen to him last year after his department was laid off. He has 15 years experience in a very specialized field and applied at 80 places at least. He only got a handful of interviews, and other places brushed him off saying he doesn't have the skill YET these companies are tiny, and work for larger companies he has direct experience working with!! One place interviewed him FIVE times just to tell him he didn't have the 'skill' even though he has done exactly the type of project they are doing!! He has been turned down on interviews by people with LESS experience and much worse final products than him. These places want someone with all the skill, but all the desperation too. Some were looking for someone to do 2-3 jobs at a time for less pay than he was getting before! They would advertise a senior role and were looking for a lead (without the title). He finally landed something good, but it was through a contact. I feel terrible for everyone looking for work right now.

I want to work, but I don't want to be taken advantage of. I don't want to be rich, I just want to pay my bills conservatively, improve my community, take an annual vacation, maybe 3 annual weekend getaways, have good health, healthcare, and be able to help my family in times of need. You're right, we don't want to be exploited.

When rents are $750-$1200 and jobs pay $11-$13 an hour it just does not work. I have been an employee and employer and do understand both sides of the coin. I am now a sole proprietor with no workers. Age and salary discrimination is undoubtedly real. People in some industries, especially food, and hospitality have just said forget it, I'll stay home and figure out other employment means.

Capt Picard said it best. "The most important thing in a man's life is to feel useful." A man will always want to work. Always. We literally suffer mentally and physically when we don't. Oligarchs have figured this out and use it against us. And what's more, ANY job that a person goes around telling people they enjoy and makes them feel fulfilled in life, the first thing that happens is his pay is cut + made to work longer hours until the man suffers for no other reason than "Why am I paying you to enjoy yourself. Because I'm wealthy, only I get to do that."

I keep hearing, “we don’t want to pay your bills,” when the only thing I’m working for is to pay my bills.

A great thing about the pandemic is that a lot of people broke free of constant exploitation for a while and changed their way of thinking!

People want to work - but are tired of being underpaid with lousy or no benefits while those clowns in D.C. are getting paid hundreds of thousand of dollars, a complete pension pick-up, zero deductibles on healthcare, both cost-of-living raises and regular yearly raises, expense accounts to pay their daily expenses while the rest of us workers pay our expenses out of our salaries ... and can't even elect a Speaker for the House of Representatives.

I am 42 years old and have never had a job. This is not from a lack of applying as I've been doing so since I was 16. It just seems like no one wants to give me a chance. I've literally only had 5 interviews. So when I hear "No one wants to work," I get pretty enraged.

I have 5 years of specialized IT experience , a killer resume, a degree, I am gainfully employed, have modern certificates, and have applied to over 200 jobs. I know that the issue is not with me. The politicians/stat agencies and industry leaders are lying.

I work in an IT department that is horribly understaffed. Every team has multiple jobs posted, and we are getting plenty of qualified applicants. Of course, some of them aren't willing to work for the crappy wages offered, but even when they are, the HR department takes literal months to reply to applicants, and then more months after the initial interview. Leadership keeps talking about everything they're doing to hire people, but it sure seems from my perspective that they are intentionally keeping us short-staffed.

It’s always profit over people always. That’s why I want to start my own business soon. I’m tired of the low wages, gaslighting, dumb corporate politics, office politics. Working hard for no reason.

I sold my business at 38 for 102 Million. I sold my house, bought a farm in PA, raise sheep and do not go to a job anymore. Working absolutely fucking sucks. Stop working asap.

"No one wants to be exploited anymore. " Couldn't have closed with a better line. Man is a genius!

Thanks for setting the record straight, Robert. I remember when I first began hearing "No one wants to work anymore". I saw an executive from a medium-sized company on TV make that exact statement. I wanted to shout back at my TV screen, "Maybe no one wants to work _for you!"_

I agree with everything Mr Reich is saying, I haven’t had a raise in over 3 years. There is a demographic he left out, older 60ish experienced workers get passed over for younger people. I’ve been trying to get a different job for over a year and no one is calling me back. Over 35 years of driving with no accidents no tickets and I get a full 53’ delivered and fill it back up with pick ups on a multiple stop route and no ones calling. I think they want a young dumb full of you know what ,inexperienced person that will work for a lower wage.

Not only low wages but frequently high requirements. They won't take "anybody". Plus many companies keep job openings for positions they don't intend to fill so they look like they're doing well and expanding.

I was making more money straight out of highschool FIFTY YEARS AGO than the minimum wage is today. How could anyone possibly live on $14.50 an hour! This is madness.

Republican: Let the market decide! Workers: Okay, we quit! Republicans: NO...not like that!

The reason is, company's are mostly hiring part time help. Companys don't want to pay benefits, or a reasonable wages.

It's not that people don't want to work. They just don't want to work for very low paying salaries. Especially in fields they already have experiences in.

Thank you for correcting those idiotic corporate media! No one wants to work for a job that isn't enough to cover your rent and cost of living. There is no labor shortage. There is however a housing shortage. You are a hero!

The owner class lies to the worker class, tale as old as time. They convince everyone that their neighbor is the problem instead of runaway corporate profits and greed. These rich people wouldn't understand "work" as the working class knows it. They have never worked 10 hours to come home and fix dinner for the kids before helping them with their homework. They can work their own jobs if they are so desirable, at the pay they offer others.

Years ago, when there were more unions many people had a better standard of living!

Upper management does not want to raise wages because they want to keep that $ for themselves. Buy another house,more horses,more toys.

I love pouncing on the opportunity to state "no one seems to want to pay anymore" in reply to the "no one seems to want to work anymore" bs

Some woman I used to work with always complained that no one wanted to work anymore then in the same sentence would say all the illegals are taking jobs. What jobs, the jobs you didn’t want? A lot of people don’t want to work anymore because they’re fed up with low pay, almost no hours, no benefits unless you’re full time, poor management and verbal abuse from customers. Who would want to put up with it? I quit working in retail almost a year ago because I was fed up with feeling like I was going nowhere with my life. I work at a high school now as a custodian. I work 40 hours a week, sometimes have overtime, I have benefits, a 401k. This job got me out of my parents house and into my own place. The best part is I don’t have to deal with customer abuse at all. Usually after school dismisses there’s hardly anyone still in the building.

This myth that’s being pushed is a load of crap. Workers need work that is decent and pays a living wage with health care benefits. Thank you Robert Reich.

Now hiring 20.00 an hour Must have CDL No moving violations Must complete paperwork on all work Must maintain and operate heavy equipment Must have own tools Must have ten years experience Must clean warehouse Must scrub toilets Must pass background check Must pass drug test Must be able to supervise crew members Must keep track of everyone's time daily Must maintain logs Must be responsible self starter Must be "energetic" Must have reliable transportation to and from multiple job sites Must be willing and able to travel Must work in all weather conditions Must be a f'ing idiot to worry about all that for 650 a week after taxes. I made more than that in 1990.

Last year, I worked at this retail store, and most of the workers were college students. They started leaving one by one because they were being overworked, and we became understaffed. For the last 3 months I was there, the manager didn't bother to fill those positions up and left us pick up the extra work, I gave a one week notice and didn't even show up for my last day. I would often get asked by other young people if we were hiring all the time but no one got hired or even interviewed.

Also, there are a lot job openings that are just a front for companies to be able to say "but we are *trying* to hire people!". There are so many "job openings" that people sign up and get a response like "we decided to go with another candidate" just for the same opening to be posted a few days later, meanwhile they hadn't found anyone, they just weren't actually looking for anyone.

Agree 100%. Stop making people an economic slave and give them respect. Give the worker a living wage.

I was making $11 an hour 6 years ago. I was stuck at $11 with no chance of ever getting a raise, not even 1 penny. Those same companies are still offering $11 an hour 6 years later. But the cost of everything else constantly goes up. I just went to pay my internet bill & they jacked it up $5 higher. This is *SICK, CRUEL & PURE EVIL!*

For a year and a half I worked 12 hour rotating shifts in a candle factory. No student loan debt, no car payments (apart from insurance), no credit cards, not married, no kids, and no expensive vices (gambling, drugs, smoking, lottery addiction, etc.). Even with all this I was still barely gaining any ground, somehow. Wake up at 4am, get to the work floor at 6am, get home at 6:30pm, pop melatonin at 7pm, go to sleep at 8pm, rinse and repeat. Did mandatory OT as required, often with last minute notice. Lived like that for a year and a half up until the sudden mass layoff. No severance... just a free candle and a thank you. 👍😵‍💫 Combine with my shitty 3 year experience with retail before that in a different company, is it any real wonder I'm apprehensive about rejoining the workforce right now? "No one wants to work anymore" indeed... anyone who believes that are either disconnected with reality, are blinded by dollar bills, or both.

I'm so glad this man is on the planet - he makes more sense to me than anyone else. Last Christmas myself and my wife went with another couple to buy Christmas trees. The husband of his other couple started talking with the man at the farm who was having trouble getting people to work for him on his farm - where he was paying people a princely ten-dollars an hour. Our friend was sympathetic and immediately pronounced, "Yeah, people just don't wanna work anymore!". I wanted to barf - what in the hell is ten bucks an hour in 2022, or, 2023? And, even weirder is this guy retired from a good job on the railroad where he made great money, had great benefits, now gets a great retirement package and where he was a union rep!!! Now he watches FoxNews all day, is suddenly anti-union, and seems completely oblivious to the real situation on the ground for American workers. He's got his, and, now people are suddenly just lazy. This shit sends me to the moon.

This is a double edged sword. My father was in manufacturing from the 1950's until retirement in the early 2000's In the 80's we started out sourcing and shifting to the "service economy". Way back in the 80's my father said this to me, this will not work. Without manufacturing you have no economy. Fast forward to today.

Jobs has become more demanding as well. What used to be a job for 2, 3 people is now combined to one person’s job. Expectations is too high on one employee, it is ridiculous

And yet, on the flip side, corporations have NO PROBLEM spending millions on hiring the BEST CEO, THE BEST COO, THE BEST..whatever. Never a thought about THE BEST WORKFORCE ,who are the ones that make the money for the corporation in the first place.

Around here there is not a labor shortage. There is a shortage of good full time jobs that pay a living wage. I know of several local companies looking for workers. Some don't offer enough hours because they don't want full time employees that ask for benefits and they ask their part timers to be able to work anywhere from 7 AM to 12 PM with no set weekly schedule. So you may close on a four hour shift one night and open a four hour shift the next morning then be off for three days. Others require full time employees to be flexible enough to travel to any of their other stores within 50 miles of their hiring store at a moments notice.

Its not the job - its the schedule. Retail is difficult because of never having weekends off or even 2 days off in a row. Managers working you late on several days then telling you to punch out early on day the pay period ends so you wont go into overtime. Working 2 evenings to close, 3 to open so your sleep schedule gets screwed up. Need to bring back blue laws so everyone is off on Sunday.

After being laid off thanks to the recent extreme shareholder value trend, I was told by more than one recruiter that expecting anything close to my previous salary was unreasonable on my part. It's certainly companies' decision how to pay -- and they frequently do make that decision very poorly, particularly lately -- but be aware that recruiters are absolutely complicit in this, and many _will_ lie to you to make their quotas and/or get their bonuses. Networking is not a skill I personally developed, unfortunately, but it's becoming the only way to find a position that not only doesn't suck but is far more likely to pay fairly for the work required.

In 13 last years I had promotions, bonuses, name at the top of the leader board, worked over time months on end... And it's never once prevented my job/team/location from being disbanded/out sourced/ or laid off. I got messed up in a pile up car accident and my employer wouldn't accommodate, while gas lighting me out the door. I don't have a house or any way of living even close to what my parents or grandparents had and by the time I can retire the retirement age will be an age I don't want to live to see. They are right, I do not want to work anymore.

I also think the problem is employers wanting an education way beyond the skills that is necessary to do the job. I have seen some office assistant positions require a bachelor's degree. I can't type for everyone but for me the ability to answer phones, send emails with attachments, and make excel sheets are things I could have done in 8th grade. My intelligence is probably below average so don't get the idea that I was some prodigy either. Why do employers insist on forcing us to obtain bachelor's degree to do tasks that you could literally get a middle schooler to do?

Sadly this has become even more prevalent and not only in the US. Other countries have even encouraged immigrants from poorer nations just to "employ" them. Sounds familiar?

Less people are willing to work and give their lives for other peoples' dreams. Worker-owned cooperative business structures help to keep net gains distributed among the workers who are co-owners of the business. A democratized workplace where the workers are the boss. It's not without its conflicts and petty resentments, but net profits are distributed more fairly and transparently. Choosing job security over efficiencies and pension funds over short-term bonuses can be voted on.

'm a 37 year old white male. For fun, I went on craigslist last month and clicked on the first job posting. It was landscaping 17/hr. Hard labor, exhausting work. No medical, no dental, no 401k, no upward mobility. Pay for your own gas to get to job site. I live in the most expensive state in the country, California. Do you wonder why I am checked out???

"Why you peasants no come work on my Plantation? This Ferrari ain't gonna pay for itself, and I'm too classy to pick my own cotton." - Well-Manicured 'Job Creators'

Eric, you heard him. No one wants to be exploited anymore!!!

Social media is also one reason. You see these rich celebs advertise their frequent vacations, buys when the average person is getting burnt out at work and sees simply no way to reach there , they decide to settle with necessities for retirement.

No one wants to waste away doing a job where all the fruits of the labor are siphoned away and the worker only gets an unlivable wage. This is why greedy corporations are trying to open the floodgates of child labor. They aren't willing to pay us a livable wage, so they'll just try to put the whole family (from as early as possible) into the factory to work for the pittance they're allowed to pay us.

"But Bob! We already used up all our record profits on stock buybacks and we don't haaaave enough money to pay employees!" -- Business owners and CEOs

Finally someone said it right. It's insane that we live in a society where if you worked 40 or even 50 hours a week at a $20 hour job, you would still be renting today because you don't have a high enough income to afford mortgage payments. So instead, single people have to group up and live share rooms for rent. Sometimes even 3 to 4 people or more per house. That combined with the cost of medical expenses, gas and car payments, and rising price of groceries. No wonder people don't want to work. You can probably get by nearly the same on unemployment benefits.

I had my job eliminated twice from the same office between '15 and '22. The first time involved staff reductions, so the company at the time could make the numbers look good to sell the division off. Went back with the new owners in '16, then in '22, the multi national owners did staff reductions in 3 countries, including my U.S. office. The entire department was eliminated, and the work reassigned to a company office in central Mexico

similarly, there is no nursing shortage. hospitals employ too few nurses as "proof", but really they want to overwork their nurses and make profits by giving substandard care. also, if they can show a nurse shortage, the government lets them bring in underpaid nurses from other countries.

I think a lot of the problem is that most companies use recruitment software that eliminates most applicants from the beginning. Then, the applicants who knew how to "game" the software end up being hired when they actually weren't good candidates at all.

"I literally can't _afford_ to work for such low pay."

Thank You all for your great service. Truth is, when we (99%) do better, so do they (1%) . Plutocracy anyone.

Yes. As I got older the exploitation was becoming unbearable and I dropped out of the labor force. But the late 70's early eighties were a time when you could go to college , get out without much debt and get a job that still paid well compared to your debt burden and at least had at least a little chance to build a modest nest egg . But that got harder and harder starting in the early 80's . As a result, today most people have no chance to say "I won't work because I'm tired of being exploited". I wish they could. Greed and the associated corruption has greatly diminished the quality of life for the average American in favor of Corporate America and the wealthy. Everyone deserves better than what America has become.

Thank you! I hear that all the time from my generation (I'm 56) and it's so intellectually lazy. They think people are living comfortable lives on government aid such as unemployment benefits. Ridiculous. Even if millions of people could actually live off of government aid and weren't motivated to work or pursue a career, that wouldn't be a failure of "socialist" government, it would be a failure of capitalism! I don't blame younger people if they are reluctant to take a job in a soulless corporate environment or a minimum wage job which is still nowhere near enough pay to live on.

I know a lot of people just started being self employed instead of working for others.

This literally made me want to lower my work ethic and working as hard at my low wage job with Publix.

It’s a “SLAVE” wage labor shortage.

There's also a problem with employers thinking they're going to get applicants with degrees and tons of experience for entry level jobs that don't need a degree. And there's tons of applicants who WANT THOSE JOBS, but their resumes are screened out.

Translation: "No One want's to work for nothing with no future to make me rich Anymore"...

The other half of the problem is insane living expenses - insurance especially. Nearly all insurance is both unfair and wasteful, and mandating insurance is unethical - why force people to take a losing gamble (which is exactly what insurance is)?

Simply put everyone needs to remember without employees there are no corporations.

My last min wage job was just like 4 years back. It was a second job because I needed to pull a lot of cash fast. Out of the 8 of us grunts, two of us had accommodations, the other one's husband made decent money. Three of them were currently living in their car circulating Walmart parking lots or on a friend's property in a old camper. Two were still living with their parents and one was very accustomed to couch surfing. Half a decade later, min wage has moved by $1. My fellow grunts couldn't afford to work there today, can't sleep in a car if you can't even afford that.

People want to work. The last job I started turned out to have a supervisor who was racist, who had a severe lack of confidentiality regarding other employees, was gaslighting, and had mood swings. Also set things up for everyone to fail. Turns out the past half dozen new hires quit on their first break. I lasted 3 days and the blatant racism (not to me, but others) was just the final straw. We do not need this nonsense. I have now put "To spread Love Joy and Happiness" as the 'Objective' in my resume..... hopefully this will weed out the horrid management.

I don't mind working. What I don't want is to work >40 hours consistently without being paid for it. Salary is a scam. All pay should be hourly based and FLSA-protected. No more "exempt" bs. On top of that, companies need to pay a wage that is more in line with the cost of living. I moved up to a really technically skilled position in my company and made about $200 more per week than in my previous role that was a lot easier. Now why would I want to move up again?