“If they drove down to the local fast-food district and suddenly noticed half of the operations shut-down, they’d ask questions.”
In my area even the fast-food restaurants have never been so slow in terms of business. The poverty has trickled down where an increasing number of families are dining on ramen noodles; only government workers still enjoy eating out and other vestiges of the “beofre-times”. I know some other people are doing OK, but they don’t/wouldn’t live around me (in what had been a middle-class area).
Lots of people marching around asking for $15/hr and unions.