I see headlines about massive job growth, but when waiting in line at various establishments I still hear grumbling about “people don’t want to work anymore.” Last month I was at Goodwill in the middle of a weekday and the checkout line was long. The old lady cashier let everyone know “nobody wants to work anymore” and the people in line chuffed on about how that’s terrible. They wondered what people do for money. They brought up Covid relief payments. I know for a fact that Goodwill only pays $11/hr. I also was wondering what kind of jobs these customers had that allowed them to be shopping at Goodwill at 1 PM on a Tuesday.
Anyway, there are a lot of people in my life I know who aren’t working BUT they are either retired or legit disabled. No “questionable disability scams” - they can’t walk, can’t breathe, can’t function. They are truly disabled.
Aside from people you know who are retired or disabled, do you know anyone who “just doesn’t want to work anymore”?
I WILL accept stories of people who were previously employed but made the decision to leave the workforce due to needing to take care of children or other people in their lives, or to homeschool. I do get the feeling that the rising costs and dwindling availability of childcare and nursing care have caused people to drop out of the workforce.
The only person I know who fits the criteria of “doesn’t want to work anymore” is a friend of my boyfriend who made some money during the GameStop and AMC stock frenzy, and is still somehow living off of those returns. And mooching off of everyone else.
Do we all know multitudes of the “doesn’t want to work anymore” cohort or is it all just a made-up story to pass blame for under-staffed, under-paid retail establishments? (I suspect it’s the latter but maybe I’m wrong)
I don’t really want to discuss the economics of all of this. No citations, no articles, just personal anecdotes of people you actually know.
My GF from Mexico is at Salvation Army right now buying up cloths at a 5 for $5 sale they have every week. She only buys cloths with designer names that are recognized in Mexico, and other items she know she can sell there at a profit. Most of the cloths she buys can be sold for $10 each in Mexico and she goes back 2 or 3 times a year. You might be suprised at the quality of some of these cloths that we Americans just give away. Myself, I haven’t bought a new shirt from an actual store in like 15 years.
So, some of those people in line are actually working by being in line. In fact, she actually runs into and competes with other women doing the exact same thing.
I have always had problems with chronic fatigue, and holding down a typical 8½ hr plus travel time job was often an ordeal. Between age 50 and 59 I gave up trying to work full time and worked part-time. When COVID hit I gave up altogether and as a widower took early Social Security at age 60. I’m now 63 going on 103, and don’t have the physical or mental energy even to do things I want to do anymore.
I’ve always known people who didn’t want to work, but I’m not sure I know many people who “don’t want to work anymore.” That implies that they would have stopped working suddenly during the pandemic and never resumed.
I do have one friend that was working remotely as a graphic designer and then when COVID hit he was furloughed. I tried to help him get another job in my field, but he lacks follow-through. He has severe anxiety and ADHD. I know he’s literally living in his parents’ basement right now. It’s difficult to really say why he’s remained unemployed. I’m not sure but I’m thinking his period of employment was more of an exception rather than a rule. I think his default might be unemployed.
He told me he had a privileged upbringing but that when he entered the workforce he became paralyzed by existential despair that never went away. I think he’s pushing 50 now and he still feels this way.
Other than that, I have a cousin who married a deadbeat, but people like that have always existed.
The “people don’t want to work anymore” adherents are missing a very important “COMPETENT” before people and “HERE” right after “work”.
Covid gave a lot of service workers a little bit of time and money they could use to actual refresh some other skills and find jobs out of the service sector (myself included). Once you’re making $20+ working an office job that doesn’t require much more brain power than waiting tables, and a LOT less stress and physical exhaustion, plus benefits and time to eat and time off and little or no public-facing bullshit? A large chunk of people that could find employment elsewhere, because the ONLY thing the previous gig had going for it was cash. That was my reasoning (though I’ve since started working on the “making that kind of money again” part).
I retired much younger than I originally planned because my job sucked so badly and I was just worn out. My 30-year-old daughter, who lives with us, just quit her job at the same school because she was so burnt out. We encouraged her to do that now, between semesters, so she can rest and think about her future plans before going back to grad school.
I suspect that the craze for eliminating jobs and forcing the remaining staff to work to their absolute physical and mental limits is harmful to their health and well-being. Maybe if employers are that it’s also shortening their working lives and ultimately contributing to a labor shortage, they’ll be motivated to improve working conditions.
Yes, it always reminds me of when a friend complain their ex- did something in the ex’s next relationship that they didn’t want to do with the friend.
“It wasn’t that she didn’t want to get get married, she didn’t want to get married to you.”
“It wasn’t that he didn’t want to have kids, he didn’t want to have kids with you.”
It’s not that people don’t want to work, it’s that people don’t want to work here for what you pay.
I know three people who retired before they were 60. One was a Federal government worker who passed his 20 year mark and was being shoved into a position he really did not want, and took retirement - he’s so young he’s thinking about ‘Act 2’, but it’s unclear if that will involve working for someone again or just living on his pension. Another got some inheritance and was already burned-out from the corporate BS, so just stopped working a few years ago. Another got COVID during the pandemic and claimed long-covid, quit working, and is now spending most of his days riding his bicycle, happy as a clam - his wife still works and brings-in the health insurance. These are all career guys in their mid-upper 50s when they stopped working, and it’s not like they’re ever going to return to their professions again.
My wife stopped working when we had little kids - which are now college graduates - altho she works a few hours a week for the city, she has no plan to return to a full-time job of any kind. My brother hated/couldn’t work when he was in his 20s, and found a convenient diagnosis that allowed him to go on long-term disability, and now just works odd remote jobs for a little extra spending money (and gambling) while happily living off the public teat. Both my wife and brother could work, but choose not to.
I retired earlier than planned. Doing my jobs with COVID restrictions was a PITA, but dealing with people not willing to mask for in-person contacts added to my stress. My wife invited me to retire early, and I did.
My FIL retired early, divorced, and went off the complete fucking deep end. Prior to this, we were pretty close. He was gonna help us raise our kid, but when COVID hit was displaying extremely erratic and dangerous behavior from a public health perspective. Our pediatrician said, no, this man should not be taking care of your child. Any attempts to talk about this he would shut down. He has spent approximately 80% of the last four years traveling all over the world, COVID be damned. He never calls to check on us or his grandson he claimed was more important than anything. He has lost and damaged many relationships as a result of this and other behavior. He occasionally comes home for a few weekends during which point he expects to act like nothing has changed. He ran out of money for traveling so he sold his house. This guy was a multimillionaire at one point, I’m not really sure his situation now, but having to sell the house to maintain his lifestyle isn’t a good sign.
This is a guy who definitely didn’t feel like working anymore, but it was technically a planned early retirement. A rich white Boomer, for anyone taking notes.
But I know someone who was laid off in their mid fifties with no intention of looking for another career position. Luckily for them they had a healthy 401k balance from which they could withdraw w/o penalty using rule 72T. Theyve been living off that ever since only supplemented now by SS income. They had one p/t job that they quit during Covid. Has plenty of skills and is in good health but not interested in working anymore.
Based on my current job where I help others find rides to their part-time jobs, many of the people standing in line are not qualified for many full-time positions, and part-timers always get paid less. We’ve got your mentally-ill, people in recovery programs, people who’s career has burned them out or created so much anxiety/pressure for them that they caved and find themselves even unable to accept a job in a path that would pay more than minimum amounts. This is especially true post-covid, where a lot of people are bearing emotional scars. Then there’s those of us who work full time, but don’t work 9-5 hours and don’t make even the medium bucks because companies are always, always tight-fisted. And now, let’s top it off with inflation.
I work full-time Sun-Wed. My rent takes 3/4 of my paycheck. That’s before paying utilities and maintaining my car. I’ll be in line at the food shelf next week.
And, yes, I know plenty of people who just don’t want to work any more. Most of them still drag themselves out of bed to go to work, because someone has to pay the bills. On the other hand, I have a brother who fit this bill. When he got laid off at 48, he called it quits because he couldn’t face the rejection (yep, mental health issues but also fear and denial). However, he had paid off his tiny home and lives totally cheap. It’s what he chose.
Interesting. Replies so far seem to lean towards “early retirement.”
I have a neighbor who retired from the police force at 56, a year or so before covid. But he kept working in security because he was bored. Covid and then some medical issues put an end to that. I am not sure if he’s still working or not.
Yep. That’s been known since mid-COVID. If you had any kind of a realistic way of getting out of the rat race, you took it, because everything else was just shit. Once you’re out, it’s hard to get back in, even if you want to.
There was also a significant number of people who realized they actually could live as single-income families, so I suspect a lot of them didn’t come back after COVID.
God, that sucks. I was reading an article giving financial advice to people who are struggling, and it was basically, “find a cheaper place to live, increase your income, reduce your food expenses.” Like, all of those things are the problem. These things can’t be found for cheaper.
Even for us every time I look at cutting back, there’s so little discretionary spending that would make any kind of real difference, because the problem is medical expenses, student loans and childcare. Our lot rent is as cheap as it could possibly be. I already make more than people can reasonably expect at a nonprofit. These other things aren’t negotiable expenses.
Relevant to the OP I almost did have to quit my part-time nonprofit job during COVID because of the sudden loss of planned childcare, but it weren’t because I didn’t want to work, it was because someone had to take care of the kid, and being the lower earner, nothing else made sense. Fortunately we made it through due to husband’s schedule flexibility, but we lost a LOT of his income just for me to keep my job. I’m talking half of our income was lost that year. Because my job was worth more to my mental health than quitting to be a SAHM. It wasn’t a financial decision it was a mental health decision we paid for. And even that was a luxury people don’t typically have. Since that time I was promoted to full time and I negotiated hard for a higher salary and my kid has major medical expenses, so we are utterly dependent on both of our incomes now.
I was given early retirement at 58 when the company I worked for closed down the software development shop here. I didn’t want to relocate, so I got early retirement.
I kept in touch with a couple of other guys my age who were let go. Senior engineers, but they couldn’t find work. No one wants 60-ish white male software developpers. One who did get a job had to sign a diversity statement to get it. I won’t sign political statements as a condition of employment, so that left me out. Now I’m thinking about doing some self-empoyment stuff again, but I will not go to work for another company.
My wife is high up in Alberta Health Services. She’s retiring this year at 58, because the job has just gotten too crazy and too frustrating. And she can’t tolerate the younger workers who complain a lot, take a lot of sick leave, lean on her for everything and don’t take direction well. She’s so frustrated that she’s leaving a job that pays extremely well and that she used to love. Being a public sector job, she has a great pension and we’ve saved a bit and our house will be paid off the day she retires. So we can afford to both be retired, but we’ll have to find something to do or we’ll go crazy. She’s done some lecturing at college and will probably do more of that, but no more full time work for her.
There have been a LOT of early retirements in her area. I think Covid lockdowns made the idea of retirement more thinkable, and changes to the work force are not sitting well with older workers, and they’re getting out where they can.
In 1993, I had a friend in my friend-group who read weirdly. He’d sit down with a book, put his head about six inches from the page, and move his head back and forth as he read each line.
He was albino, and I learned that he was functionally blind, and was on full social security disability for his blindness. He was also really, really smart, and passionate about computers and coding, and he probably could’ve gotten a good-paying job during the dot-com boom. But he stayed out of work, because if he ever got hired for a paying job, there was a very good chance that it’d permanently torpedo his chance to get disability for his blindness–even if it turned out that he couldn’t swing it at the paying job and got let go.
When I think of “people who don’t want to work,” I think about him, where there were very clear disincentives for his getting a paying job. A better system would be more forgiving if he tried a paying job and it didn’t work out; but without that system, it was the rational choice for him to avoid paying work. (Eventually he did get a paying job, and it worked out great, but it was a huge gamble for him).
At the school I teach at, we used to have a couple dozen applicants for each job. Now, we have massive vacancies and massive turnover. We have a third grade position where the teacher left midyear, and a fourth grade position where the teacher left midyear, and the principal has been unable to fill the positions except with short-term subs. Both of the subs will leave at the end of next week, and we have no idea who’s gonna be in those classrooms then.
Coincidentally, despite a multi-year campaign by our union (which due to NC laws has no actual bargaining power), and despite one of the nation’s highest year-over-year increases in housing costs, and despite the highest cost of living in our state, our county commissioners refused to give teachers a significant pay increase last year. We warned them that more and more staff are leaving because they can’t afford to live in our community, but they blew us off.
It’s not that people don’t want to teach. It’s that they can’t afford to do the work for the pay they’ll receive.
My late brother had two twin step daughters who are now in their 40’s. They have never successfully held any kind of job. Well, when they were younger, they would occasionally stand in front of a tax place in a lady liberty costume and dance a sign around, but they quit that after a season or two. They are both very very lazy and both suffer from serious mental illness, which has only worsened in recent years. They have both recently spent time in the psych ward on lithium.
They live with mom who has breast cancer and I have no idea how they are surviving. Years ago, one of the girls was allowed disability while the other one was refused. They have been arguing that decision but I don’t know the current status.
My sister retired early and is not interested in going back to work. She’s 64. She did try for a little while to get on part time at Costco, but they didn’t hire her so she said screw it.
My daughter gave up a pretty good paying job to be a stay at home mom to her 3 adopted kids. That was way before covid.
My brother hated/couldn’t work when he was in his 20s, and found a convenient diagnosis that allowed him to go on long-term disability, and now just works odd remote jobs for a little extra spending money (and gambling) while happily living off the public teat. Both my wife and brother could work, but choose not to.