Unemployment benefits pay more than these jobs. Change that and people will go back to work. F’ing simple really.
Yup.
For decades, wages have not kept pace with inflation. Once upon a time, you could have a low-level job and afford an apartment, maybe even a house, and you could have a social life, meet someone, have kids. Being poor is never fun, but if you can earn enough to get started, then you have hope, you can work hard, you can rise up.
Now it’s different.
Wages are too low. Can’t rent an apartment, can’t have a social life, can’t meet anyone. Can’t get your life started, don’t see any point to working hard, because you just have no hope at all.
Wages need to rise. By quite a bit.
People say, “If wages rise, we’ll have inflation.” But the key problem with inflation is government monetary policy. The government spends trillions that it does not have, and prices of everything get inflated.
Wages NEED to rise in response. And they haven’t. Rising wages are NOT a cause of inflation. We need to find a way for low-level jobs to pay a decent amount. Like, maybe $30 an hour. If you pay enough, you will have workers.
What we have now is a society in which young people increasingly don’t see any light at the end of the tunnel. They have no hope. No reason to work hard. We need to fix that. Higher wages, IMO, is the only solution possible.