"Well that foreman, he's a regular dog
The line boss, he's a fool
Got a brand new flattop haircut
Lord, he thinks he's cool
One of these days I'm gonna' blow my top
And that sucker, he's gonna' pay
Lord, I can't wait to see their faces
When I get the nerve to say
Take this job and shove it
I ain't working here no more."
Sung by Johnny Paycheck, "Take This Job," 1977
Going to work is a habit. COVID broke the habit.
Jobs are going begging.
Americans are hearing a policy debate over the enhanced federal and state unemployment benefits initiated back in March 2020. Unemployment insurance is an easy explanation for people not going back to work. People got paid to stay home, and they had school children at home to watch or home fix-up projects to do. The widespread expectation was that states which ended unemployment payments would have a big surge of people going back to work. It didn't happen.
Work is about money, but it is also about life.
People have gotten more fussy and demanding about their work. People can quit work feeling secure in the knowledge that they can find something else. A person helping me grow cannabis at my farm explained that he quit a job at Federal Express. He worked hard, unloading and re-loading trucks getting paid $17/hour. He worked alone, from 3 a.m. to 9 a.m. and didn't mind the hours or solitude because he listened to music on earphones as he worked. A supervisor noticed the earphones and said he couldn't wear them. The employee said it made the job enjoyable and didn't hurt anything. The supervisor said no. The employee quit. He said the supervisor later called repeatedly offering higher pay. The employee said no. Working alone, without music, "the job sucked."
Entry level jobs in fast food are advertising $15/hour, and more. School bus and delivery jobs pay more, and employers are begging people to apply. Manufacturing jobs have signs offering a sign-up bonus, health benefits, and $17 an hour.
Approximately 5% of American employees are quitting their jobs because they refuse to be vaccinated. They are in the news, sometimes described as heroes of conscience, and sometimes as stubborn, selfish fools. Police officers and nurses who quit will eventually find work again if they want it. The number of people saying they are quitting to avoid vaccination is not surprising or exceptional amid the overall national "I quit" movement. About 3% of all U.S. employees quit their jobs in September. I suspect many people who say they are quitting because of a COVID vaccination were half way out the door anyway, restless, and ready for a break. Nurses and police have been working extra hours under stressful conditions and get burned out.
There is something else going on. It is an impression I have drawn from my own experience. Going to work is a habit, and when the habit is broken people who have the opportunity to drop out of the labor force sometimes do it. At age 63 I took a different kind of vacation, a full month off to visit the Amazon. It changed me in a way that long weekends and a one-week vacations did not. I lost the habit of being in a routine. I got into a new habit of reading at leisure. I liked it. I still loved my work, but putting on a suit and being engaged in markets and money seemed like a choice, not an inevitability. I got a taste of retirement and liked it.
The shutdown in the spring of 2020 broke habits. Five million people left the workforce. They lost the nine-to-five routine of going to a job site. Maybe they discovered they liked spending days at home. Maybe they liked early retirement. Maybe they just wanted something new and on their own, where they don't show up as "employees" on someone else's books.
This isn't new. Artists understood it before labor economists did. Dolly Parton sang about it in 1980:
Working 9 to 5, what a way to make a living
Barely getting by, it's all taking and no giving
They just use your mind, and they never give you credit
It's enough to drive you crazy if you let it
Going to the office is a grind. But when routine is upset, one sees there is the alternative, out of the regular 9 to 5 workforce, turning a side-hustle into a new, better life:
Working 5 to 9, you've got passion and a vision
'Cause it's hustlin' time, a whole new way to make a livin'
Gonna change your life, do somethin' that gives it meanin'Well you got dreams and you know they matter
Be your own boss, climb your own ladder
That moment's getting closer by the dayAnd you're in the same boat with a lotta your friends
Launching ideas you all believe in
The tide's gonna turn, and it's all gonna roll your way
10 comments:
Some people work because they are industrious, they have pride in themselves, and they have self-esteem. Others are lazy, and they are happy to have someone else take care of them.
If there were no government welfare programs, then most people would have to work in order to eat, and support themselves.
When you have the government paying you at least 75% of what your prior take-home pay was to not work, then who wants to work? It costs money to travel to work, and work is stressful. When your lifestyle does not change when you refuse to work, then where's the incentive to be productive?
This was/is the plan of Andrew Yang and others to pay everyone a minimum basic income to everyone. It destroys the incentive to work.
If nobody is working, then who will be the producers in society? Who is going to grow your food, or make your clothes, or pave the roads?
This is all the plan of communists, who know that humans are basically lazy, and they want to get you addicted and dependent on big government. Nevertheless, the question still exists. Who is going to produce? Just go ask Cuba and Argentina. They are good examples of socialism/communism gone bad.
I think the takeaway here is that a lot of people, a lot, simply don't like their jobs.
I'd just make the point that those in mindless, dead end and insecure vocations tolerate them for health care, money to buy "toys" or just survival. We all know those who are "working for the weekend" and leap at any excuse for some time off. COVID certainly provided that, which is another reason why Republicans mismanaged the response. Their incompetence prolonged the epidemic so much so that we are now facing an uncertain economic future. One might have thought that their main concern would have been ensuring financial security for the working class they claim to care so much about, but instead they used a global epidemic to score culture war points.
We have been sounding the alarm about wage stagnation for decades. While the reasons you cite are valid, I'd venture that many are just defeated. I can imagine someone struggling in a unfulfilling job simply giving up.
Can you blame them?
Advice I've given to employees: If you can't think of one good reason to go to work in your current job turn your car around and go home and look for other employment. Some of these employees are/were front line workers. They have/had a responsibility to do their job in a matter that required following rules, orders and directives or people died. If a subset of disgruntled workers were told to take and pass drug test to hold their job they would protest but eventually take the test. If they did not they were fired. The rule was a requirement. If you can't follow the rules why should you be allowed to be in a position where you are telling other employees and the public what to do if you won't follow the rules? The answer is simple, quit and do a job where your attitude is tolerated but not a job that endangers others by your obvious noncompliance.
All this talk of work and benefits brings to mind the 2021 World Happiness Report. For years it has listed Scandinavian countries has the happiest in the world, probably because of their willingness to support social programs that benefit them all.
The U.S., the only developed nation that lacks universal health care, is ranked 14th. The good news is that we're up from 18th, probably because Trump is no longer our so-called president.
When I was in the Air Force,I worked with men usually, as it was an operational combat unit. Most believed in and dutifully and quietly performed their assigned tasks. Some did their jobs and complained bitterly about their lot in military life but stayed for the on duty and promised retirement security. They hated every day for 20 25 or 30 years then RETIRED to "finally enjoy life". A lot of them did not live more than a few years, many got divorced and all of them wasted the most productive years of their lives. O've been asked and ponder frequently what is the difference between those who "make it" and those living on the Medford Greenway. There is no one answer. Is there a flip-flop critical decision that sends one irreversibly upwards or downwards for life destinations? What is the inherent human factor that flips into one track or the other? Some people need the self-actualization of work and success, others to just pay the bills for momentary transient rewards,and others imply drift. Another way to look at it is Some hear the gun and run, others are fiddling on the blocks and fumble at the start, some ate Kate to the starting gate and some are not even aware that there is an event.
PS the minimum wage debate is being answered by this pandemic. 1.Some will not even work for the "living wage" 2. Business can offer $15.00/h. ,without going broke (squashing minimum wage opponents) What do we do with those who simply won't work?
UBI (Universal Basic Income) is not going to solve anything. It's simply welfare renamed.
Look at the cart Peter has in his post for today. There haven't ever been this many job openings, and job participation is at new lows.
Complex problem to solve. Several generations of downplaying merit, and an everyone gets a trophy mindset for kids growing up.
And we have Oregon tossing out graduation requirements. Colleges no longer requiring ACT or SAT scores for admissions.
The work ethic has dwindled.
I don't have any solutions, but I'm making sure my kids and grandkids will need to work hard to be successful.
Universal healthcare isn't going to fix things either.
Maybe some of the job openings are because of all those "rapists and murderers" we deported who were supposedly taking jobs away from Americans.
If you get a good education you can get a job that is fulfilling.
Education is power.
Mc, let me add, live life as if the glass is half full, not half empty.
Figure out what job can make you both happy, as well as pay for the lifestyle you want. That balance and compromise are essential.
Just ask some of those folks who finally got their $15/hour. I'll bet most aren't very happy, and want (demand?) even more.
I make $0.00/hour now, and am quite happy.
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