Unemployment checks during the pandemic were often higher than service workers’ typical paychecks. Many workers, laid off at the beginning of the pandemic, are doing the smart thing and NOT going back to work!
For the first time in 25 years, companies are being forced to pay higher wages to overcome a labor shortage. But there’s a lot more to this story.
Increased wages will take a small bite out of companies’ profits. But instead of cutting CEO salaries – which continued to go UP during the pandemic – many corporations want to raise the cost of goods and services instead.
The average full-time McDonald’s employee, for example, makes only $30,000 BEFORE taxes. Meanwhile, the CEO made over $10 million last year! The only way the rich can stay rich is if workers stay poor – so the wage increases may just be temporary.
After the world retains a sense of normalcy, it’s likely wages will drop. The increase isn’t a reward for hard, “essential” work – but an incentive to lure people back into a capitalist society that sees them as profit-makers, not human beings.
If wages had followed inflation, the minimum wage would be $24 an hour right now! These large companies are exploiting workers – if they consistently paid a fair wage, they’d have no problem competing with unemployment.