This trend has been characterized as the Great Resignation, and just
about every economist and pundit has taken their crack at teasing out
why it’s happening. Explanations have included health and safety fears,
child care needs, a tight labor market, boosted savings from stimulus
funds or reduced ability to spend money on bars and movies, enhanced
unemployment benefits, increases in business formation, desire to work
from home, early retirements, restrictions on immigration, demographic
shrinking of the prime-age workforce, and my personal favorite,
expectations of a labor shortage creating a labor shortage.
Some of these ideas have merit, though none can quite explain
everything. In these moments, it’s best to actually ask the workers
themselves. I did that, talking to dozens of people who have recently
quit their job, or experts who closely track workers who have. And some
patterns emerged.
The most vulnerable people in America have started the closest thing we’ve seen in a century to a general strike.
Work at the low end of the wage scale has become ghastly over the
past several decades. With no meaningful improvements in federal labor
policy since the 1930s, employers have accrued tremendous power. Workers
were afraid to voice any disapproval, taking whatever scraps they could
get. “The U.S. needs a reset, needs a big push, to get to a place where
work is more secure and livable for a lot of the population,” said MIT
economist David Autor, who has tracked the misery of American
deindustrialization and the
shock of China’s rise as a manufacturing powerhouse.
The pandemic functioned as that reset, creating a mental escape hatch
from the immiseration and even danger of ordinary work. If you call
someone an “essential worker” for long enough, they start to believe it.
They start to wonder whether they deserve more, given their essential
nature. Gaining courage from social media, the most vulnerable people in
America have started the closest thing we’ve seen in a century to a
general strike.
For now, it’s working to deliver higher wages and better conditions.
But from my talks with workers, they’re really seeking something more
ineffable than a couple more bucks an hour. Work is the largest time
block of the day, in a moment where we’ve all learned how precious time
can be. People simply want to spend that time getting the dignity and
respect denied to them for so long.....