The Great Refusal

 

I'm far from the first person to comment on how hard it is to hire anyone at the moment.  It's a first in my lifetime, at least, to see "Help Wanted" signs JUST ABOUT EVERYWHERE and hardly any takers.  

The curious thing to me is that this started well before the Covid-19 pandemic.  The first sign was the busy fast food outlet that shut down for good close to where I am sitting, not because of an outbreak of food poisoning or flunking too many Heath Department inspections.  They just ran out of employees.  This was a good 2 years before Covid arrived.

At the same time we have all heard a GREAT DEAL OF RUMBLING about raising the minimum wage.  The cost of living has risen too far for anyone to get by on $7.50 a hour unless they're living rent-free with their parents or something.  That was the minimum for some time before the previous governor raised it to $9.25 per hour, with hikes to match the cost of living so it is now $9.50.  This is about three times the minimum wage when I first started working and here's the thing:  you still can't live on it.

And all this is aside from what employers put some of their working people through, like hiring a teenager for the full minimum wage, then announcing later that "Since you're under 18, we don't have to pay you what we promised.  From now on you're making $5.50/hour.  Sorry!"  Waitstaff at restaurants are STILL making the exact same wage they got when I was a college student in the Eighties, $2.25 per hour, on the pretext that, well, if you wait tables you get tips, so you make money on the side.  Except these days you have to split your tips with the kid who busses the tables, and the hostess, and on and on.  AND tips are now taxable.

And of course, not every day at the cafe is equally busy.  And, of course, not everybody leaves a tip.

Then then came Covid, and almost all of us were locked down for months at a time.  Millions lost their jobs almost overnight.  The government came through for us with the most generous increases in unemployment benefits probably ever, PLUS an eviction moratorium.

And then things started to open up, and...nobody wants a job.  Not if the job pays less than $30/hour.  Well-paid jobs are filling up nicely. With half the country refusing to wear a germ mask or get vaccinated, it's definitely not about the virus.  

Here's an unexpected area where everyone in the country...except the gummint...is on the same page.  We only want to make a living wage, ESPECIALLY if we're doing humiliating, difficult, dirty-fingernails jobs.  You know, like home healthcare aide.  Waiter.  Daycare provider.  School-bus driver.  Assembly-line worker in a cannery or slaughterhouse.  Night-shift worker in a homeless shelter.  The deep-fryer operator at your local fast-food outlet.  Jobs like that.  So it raises the question again:  DO WE NEED TO RAISE THE MINIMUM WAGE?  This is a daunting task that can take YEARS of controversy, negotiation and sometimes a literal Act of Congress...

So here's what we're doing.  WE'RE RAISING THE MINIMUM WAGE OURSELVES via good old-fashioned passive resistance.  Workplaces are starting to get some applicants by reposting their open positions and OFFERING ENOUGH MONEY TO LIVE ON.   It's not enough yet, but the rising tide is starting to lift all the boats we hear about in that old saying.

  IF THE BUREAUCRACY CAN'T HELP US, 

WE CAN HELP OURSELVES.