I think there are a couple things being lumped together here.
Figure the 5-10% of the workforce prepared to find a new job rather than get vaccinated are being counted as resignations even when they are forced resignations. Some of these people just said fuck it and retired. Those that are too young for that to be viable may well have said something similar and decided to live on savings until the mandates go away.
Figure that the pre-paid $3600/child benefit is several month's expenses for, say, a minimum-wage worker who has already cut expenses to the bone through the past two years of the pandemic. Factor in the 25% increase in food support, dramatically reduced gas usage by not driving to work or paying for daycare. A single mom who moved back in with her parents and is basically paying for occasional gas and food, for example. These are people whose expenses are already as low as they can get. They might show up back in the workforce, but only when the benefits go away or stop covering expenses. When you're already in mom's basement, getting out again takes a lot of incentive.
Figure that the break-even point where working for money pays better than gaming the welfare system is somewhere around $30K-$50K per year... before COVID. The last two years taught a lot of people in marginal jobs how to survive on government handouts without working. And probably it taught a fair number of women who were happily working that staying home and raising their kids was more fulfilling and reduced their expenses a lot, too.
Oh, and about those daycare expenses? Schools are still refusing to start up in a lot of places, too.
Figure that the rest is probably skills mismatch, where companies are looking for vaccinated IT workers who can work remotely instead of unemployed ex-waitresses.
Probably mix in an unhealthy dose of offshoring from companies that realized they can hire people with laptops and internet connections from other countries cheaper than replacing their US-citizen unvaccinated workers.
But a lot of the low level jobs that journalists are thinking of when they spout their 90%/10% ideology are the jobs that have already been destroyed over the past two years by COVID. The workers have already adjusted their lifestyles to reduce expenses. Many of them didn't have to pay rent for the last two years and some still don't (due to COVID moratoriums on eviction). They have already adjusted to the government cheese.
This entry was published Wed Jan 12 18:14:43 CST 2022 by TriggerFinger
and last updated 2022-01-12 18:14:43.0.
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