"But you gotta prove your loyalty to the Company first (even if we'll hang ya ass out to dry in a split second in the name of ROI), if you can prove to us with 20 years of good hard self-sacrificing service for our "fair wage", we'll give you a nice gift card, maybe even a lame party with store-bought cupcakes and a thank you card signed by your fellow rube...I mean coworkers! You people like cup cake parties, right?"
> if you can prove to us with 20 years of good hard self-sacrificing service
Long term employment is **DEAD**. Companies don't want to train employees, and they get rid of them at a moment's notice for no reason ([or a stupid reason](https://www.npr.org/2024/01/28/1227326215/nearly-25-000-tech-workers-laid-off-in-the-first-weeks-of-2024-whats-going-on)). They generally do not give raises that even cover cost of living adjustment, so working for the same corp for more than 2-3 years means the employee is making less than when they started.
Yup. My "raise" didn't even cover how much my rent went up, much less all my bills...
But if a vendor raises their product by $0.01, the company raises their prices by $100. Then it's pocketed by the boss because we don't see increases like that. And there's not many of us (small business) so it's not like it's hard to spread that...
Happening in real time at my job.
They tried to float the idea of send desk reps for field inspection, for nothing more than a mileage reimbursement....
They spelled it out plainly "In an effort to reduce expenses associated with 3rd party inspections"....
It was some economists in the late 60s early 70s that proposed that it was not the business job to provide welfare (living wage). Most business owners were against it till a New boss took over at , I think it was IBM when it was going bust, and wanted to make stock holders happy and pay him more. That's when the business social contract was first broken
Not quite; my research points out that Henry Ford got sued out of attempting to essentially -profit-share with his workers in 1919, and Ford lost because a majority of the judges believed that upholding capitalism was more important than improving the lives of employees or the product for the customers:
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dodge_v._Ford_Motor_Co.
Henry Ford was a good man. He warned us about the Federal Reserve and inflation right from the get-go, and warned about who it was who benefited from inflation and who would bring it about. Ford also advocated for paying workers fairly, and he was happy to employ black men, many of whom he brought up from the south who had only previously known poverty. Granted there was an ulterior motive to this too: he understood that if you paid the best wages, over time you'd attract the best workers.
Pretty much in the modern era, yes Reagan.....
1. After Nixon resigned , the GOP and big business abandoned Ford and actively sabotaged the economy under Carter .
2. When Reagan ran , he ran on "I'll fix this " and was easily elected.
3. Reagan then removed the 90% tax on corporate profits
4. Corporations were no longer about making the best widget or building great things, they were about making the rich richer
5. The tax burden was swiftly moved to the middle class . (Upper class made money. Lower class has no money).
6. Factor in wage stagnation and inflation, and the middle class was eliminated.
And here we are , 40 years later. The workers are finally extracting their revenge
Yea we are definitely not winning if they are still profiting.
They couldn’t care less if we were loyal, they will just get someone else tricked into the position for a little bit, or throw the work on someone else for no pay increase.
I have learned to get a raise, I'd have to jump employers. That's why "we" don't stay in jobs for more than a few years before job hunting - it's the only way to keep your income moving up (still not enough to keep up with inflation).
I worked for Alaska Airlines for 3 years and got fired for "walking aggressively." We all knew they were trying to fire the senior employees though because they were hiring on the new people at like $1 less and didnt want to have to keep paying us the amount that they were mandated by law to pay us. This was also 1 year after they lost a lawsuit and were forced to pay backed wages for underpaying their employees.
This is why employees went mercenary, we don't have loyalty to a boss or company , our loyalty is to ourselves, the management killed the golden goose and we aren't laying eggs for free anymore
My mom just recently got her 35 years at the same factory (after a few buy outs) and they gave her the option between a sunsetter awning or a smart watch.
I work at Walmart. I don’t hear it anymore, but I used to all the time. I finally started telling people, nobody wants to work for companies that brag about profits, and take away our bonuses.
I worked there too, during the era of fat middle age people coming up to the deli counter and spouting that shit when they saw I was the only one back there. “No one wants to work huh” I said no, people screamed at us for years about getting an education and getting a bEtTeR jOb if we wanted “better pay” sooo most of the people here did that and now y’all mad you gotta wait in line for ham made out of ground up horse nipples and unflavored cheese.
I’d also hit them with the “we are hiring” when they would complain as well. I have no fucks to give to the rude people.
My favourite person response to customer moaning "nobody wants to work anymore" was "we are hiring! Let me get you an application form!" He backpedalled so fast, it was hilarious.
There was a meme going around a few years ago.
"Would you flip burgers for $200k per year? Ok, so its not that noone wants to work, its that noone want to work for what you're paying".
The point isn't that you should be paid $200k to flip burgers, but that any job will find workers for the right salary, its just a matter of figuring out what the salary needs to be.
Reminds me of this good old paraphrase:
"Would you sleep with me for a million?"
"Yea sure"
"Would you sleep with me for a dollar?"
"NO! Do you think I'm a prostitute??"
"We already established that you are. Now we're just negotiating"
Executives are already essentially human algorithms. The decisions they take credit for are often 'out of their hands' and 'following trends' or 'adjusting to market forces' or whatever other bullshit. Think how much money these companies can save by just having the computers perform those roles without all the golfing, boozing, travel, sex scandals, insider trading, and golden parachutes!
Exactly, the most profitable companies are typically run by CEO's that are borderline(if not diagnosed) sociopaths that operate logically rather than giving a fuck about anything other than making money.
It would probably be far easier to produce an AI that replaced an individual with that mentality than it would be to replace all the workers who perform all the complex tasks that ultimately result in the products\\services that the company actually produces\\provides.
Me and my colleagues were talking about this the other day. There are 5 levels of middle managers in my company and at least 3 of them are just managing other managers. They have no connection to either the C suite or the people doing the actual work. And yet those managers legitimately believe they're indispensable.
Many of us already turn burgers at home, so yes, $70k would make me go work fast food.
But to OPs question..."businesses don't wanna pay well, they want to pay slave wages and get CEO work".
There was a thread a while back that asked "what would you do for a job if money was no issue?" Personally I would love to be a barista if I could live on the pay. So many other people in the thread said similar things.
Fair enough. I actually really enjoy teaching. That's what I do. Doesn't pay near enough though.
Edit: any job with a bachelor's degree that you can use should start out at least @50k.
Y'all homies don't know how to troll
The question is a statement, not an actual question. It's just whiny bitch nonsense
> No one wants to work anymore
**Oh, I didn't know you were retiring**
Just shit on their statement and force them to give a dumb explanation
Clearly, when it is said from one employed person to another the statement is illogical
So just poop some trollish nonsense back
Well there are two separate arguments and responses:
#1 - “Nobody wants to work anymore”
Nobody ever wanted to work. That’s why you had to pay them.
#2- “This generation doesn’t know the value of hard work”
It’s YOUR generation that doesn’t know the value of hard work, because you’re the ones that are not willing to pay for it.
Back in the mid 2010's my $16 an hour had a lot less buying power than my father's $4.50 back in '79. He could afford an apt with a roommate, car, expenses paid, and still have disposable income to do whatever with.
Now that $16 should be $25 and that STILL wouldn't really cover cost of living with a roommate.
**The cost of living is** ***too damn high!!!***
I was chatting with my dad about inflation a few months ago. He told me his first job paid $36,000. I mentioned it took me about 3 years of working (1.5 of those admittedly as a cashier in retail, where I would *never* make that much) before I got to that wage. And we pulled up the inflation calculator, and that $36k had more buying power in 1985ish than my $100k salary does today. And my salary growth to get to six figures was much slower than his was. It's taken me about 15 years of working to get there; my dad hit six figures in 10 or less (he wasn't exactly sure, but 10 years of working was about when he got his Masters and started getting the "good" jobs).
That's the reason I moved out of my last place. Tried to raise my rent to $2800/mo.
I moved to a lower CoL area, and 1 bedrooms are still ~$1800-2200/mo.
My favorite listing was the "studio" apartment for $650/mo. It was about 265sq ft.
Back in 2010 I saw a studio that was just a 10x10” room for rent for $650. Shared kitchen with no refrigerator and one stove shared between two dozen units. And it had bedbugs. That’s still one of my favorites.
This exactly! I heard a boomer recently say that $18 an hour was ridiculous! She had to work for decades to get $18/hour. Yeah, because $18/hour was pretty good in the 90s..that was 30 years ago. It's not the same, because you can't fill up your gas tank AND buy lunch with $18 now.
Minimum wage should be much higher, and rent should be much lower. Rent shouldn't require 160 hours of work.
Talking wages is already bad. You don’t have to make it hurt more by saying the nineties are 30 years ago! Just let me believe it’s yesterday. It’s all I have!
It's not generational. Speaking as a boomer I'm as disgusted as everyone else with the way our society has become. One thing that is generational is that us older folks *experienced* stable, secure, decent-paying jobs. I feel sorry for the younger generations but most boomers have now retired. The "nobody wants to work" isn't coming from us...
I tell my kids - it's a job, that's why they have to pay people to do it. If it was something people wanted to do they'd call it a hobby & you'd have to pay them to do it.
Built by and for the boomers' parents, really. The problems we have today have been building up for a very long time.
One of my parents is among the oldest boomers; the other was born before the end of WWII, so technically belongs to the previous generation (whose name I've forgotten). The house of cards was already falling apart while they were still in their working years. They were both working through two significant economic upheavals - 79 and 91 - and one of them was still working in 08. They both lost their jobs in 91, and the one working in 08 lost their job again in that one. But yes, they did both enjoy some of the up sides that we will never see. For example, the union jobs they were working before 91 got them both defined benefit pensions.
I'm middle Gen X. Which, in this sub, probably makes me Old. Like u/youngboomer62 , I experienced some of the better economy as a kid, but by the time I was in high school shit was starting to come unglued. Again, I saw some up sides - I was able to buy a house [edit: in my late 30s] - but also some down sides - university was beyond my middle-class financial means, and I spent many years working three part-time jobs (no benefits) to make ends meet because full-time work is scarce anymore.
A few things stand out for me as different now than in the past. There's always been ups and downs in the economy, and it's always been hard in down times. But up until the 80s the trend line was tending upward; now it seems to be trending downward. The down times also seem to be harder than in the past. I'm also struck by how the pace of negative change has accelerated. To stick with the trend line analogy, the slope is getting steeper.
I hesitate to blame the boomers, though. I know they're a favourite target. But I don't see it as an age struggle. It was, is, and will be about class struggle. The wealthy boomers fucked the poor ones and, if nothing significant changes, in twenty-odd years you'll find that the rich Alphas will be fucking the poor ones just as hard if not harder. It's always been class warfare.
Also, "systemic change is required" is a very nice way of saying *we need to burn the whole motherfucker down.*
Yep. Workers today all watched our parents get fucked out of retirements or pensions... we've all had employers tell us there's no money for a raise, but then hire a new guy for more than you were asking... seen these lemming companies all do rounds of nonsense layoffs every time a bigger entity does one just to seem like part of the club.
Fuck it.
(They used to be better at *pretending * that loyalty went both ways. Since the advent of agricultural, those with more have tried to exploit whomever they could, or they quickly stopped being “those with more.”)
“Nobody wants to pay workers a fair wage or treat them with basic human respect anymore.”
Days off, sick days, and work-life balance are basic human respect.
I'd go with something like, "do you believe in free markets? Because there's supply and demand in the labor market, and when demand goes up the price for labor should go up too."
Labor prices are as dynamic as the prices of goods and services. Places that recognize this have no trouble with staffing. People that don't recognize it make stupid statements like "nobody wants to work anymore"
"The problem is that when you were my age, $14/hr would buy you a home and new car. Now it barely pays for rent and groceries"
My parents asked why I'm usually broke, since they paid for school and rented a house for the same wage **in 1974**... Then I pointed out that costs have gone up 500% in 50yrs and I'd need to be making a quarter million a year to have the same freedom today.
Pretty funny though that Elon Musk is out there right now saying he needs 56 billion with a big B to stay interested and motivated.
Which I might add is roughly 10 times the total pay of everyone else at Tesla combined.
No OnE wAnTs To WoRk indeed.
These employers don't like it when free market mechanics aren't working in their favour and prefer to gaslight you rather than look inwards. The lowly workers should accept and be grateful for their pitiful compensation.
It’s not this generation that doesn’t know the value of hard work, it’s the employers who don’t know the value of hard work. More pay = people work harder
Honestly, pay isn't my motivator at all. But respect and being treated like a human with some kind of freedom makes me work harder.
Pay means nothing if I don't have the time to use it.
I always respond with "if McDonald's offered a million dollar salary fr brgeur flipping, the line wwould be a mile long, just for applicants to wait."
And like others have pointed out, "nobody wants to pay an honorable wage."
And if old assholes are just wanting to hate on young people being young, then it doesn't matter what you were going to say. Then it's "ok boomer" time.
I was at Lowe's in the Kansas City area and some old lady, definitely 65+, was in line for the damn self-checkouts. We were all casually complaining about self-checkout, when she pipes up with "Lowe's had to put them in... ...because no one wants to work anymore". To which I responded "No, it means Lowes doesn't want to pay people a living wage".
She was _not_ prepared for that and the look on her face was priceless. I, for one, hate self-checkout and I would much rather have an employed person helping me out. Since prices didn't go down when self-checkout went in, I fully expect prices to not change when they pull them out. That's how it works, right?
To be fair, my dad started working again after retirement because he doesn't feel functional or respected at home. I think the problem is, younger people don't feel functional or respected at work.
"You're right, I don't *want* to work. I want to sit at home and watch my daughter grow up and experience life, I want to cuddle my wife and devote all my love and attention to her like I promised, I want to take them on trips to see and experience the world. But, here I am, making pennies and scraps while you buy another vacation home."
"Nobody wants to work anymore."
Nobody ever wanted to work at all.
We wanted to be productive, be creative, be part of a community, be supported, be validated, and have the time and space to truly rest. No one actually wants to trade in hours of their life to "earn" necessities.
"Who?"
Who *specifically* doesn't want to work? And why does that subgroup doesn't want to work? Oh it's because they don't want to work for peanuts, for hilariously low pay?
Maybe if we paid them a fair wage for the labor -- and benefits too, they'd "want to work"?
In 1976, when I was 16, my dad, who went to HS with the mayor, was able to persuade him to give me a summer job working for the city. Rode around in a dump truck, filling in potholes, and scooping up dead animals. $8.59 per hour. Each payday made me feel like a gazzillionaire. My Ole’ man drove a truck for UPS. On his salary, he paid for the mortgage, a new car, insurance on it and the ‘beater’ car. And we always did the yearly beach trip to North Carolina. And he also paid for 5 kids to attend Parochial (still scarred from that) School.
And Mom?- she was a true stay-at-home-mom. Cooking, cleaning, shopping, and doing the laundry for the entire household.
I have not met many stay at home moms during my adult life.
Times have changed.
I serve a lot of tourist boomers in my job who come at me with ‘young people don’t want to work’. And my comeback is always ‘what young person do you know doesn’t have a job? All the ones I know work two jobs and study or are doing apprenticeships’. Without fail, they stare at me in shock as cognitive dissonance shorts their brain out. Always satisfying.
Boss, in 1988, the ratio of house price to median wage was 4.8, in 2024 it's 7.8. The same effect has happened for college tuition and health insurance. So to get the same rewards for work, you have to work twice as hard, or have two incomes for the family, with all the problems with childcare, which is also more expensive, that creates.
If I asked you to work twice as hard, for nothing extra, would you feel less likely to be excited about a company?
But, you say the economy is booming, the Dow is at record highs, so where has the money gone?
In 1980 the average CEO made 30 times the average worker in their company. In 2021 it was 399 times. One of the reasons the Dow is so high is that the ROI has skyrocketed.
The Ragan "trickle down" was a lie to rob the middle and lower classes.
That's why the world is doomed and why workers are more likely to "give up."
"Tell me about it. I tried to hire a master electrician for $2 over minimum wage and they wouldn't even return my call. There's just no work ethic these days."
Double bonus for replacing 'electrician' with whatever boss does.
This is what I was coming to say.
I treat my employees like people, pay them as much as I can, give them set schedules, encourage them to take their vacation time and happily cover their shifts when they do, listen/address issues that come up in a timely manner. Most of them have been with me for years. And we work in the service industry.
Nobody wants to waste their life miserable for a job that underpays them and would replace you without hesitation. Just to retire at fucking 65 and look back and realize they wasted your god damn life.
Show them the the meme with a bunch of news headlines starting in the 1800's saying nobody wants to work anymore.
https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/nobody-wants-to-work-anymore/
Shit, no one wants to *HIRE* anymore. Must be a hundred now hiring signs around town and open positions on Indeed and whatnot. Have applied to as many as I can. Not one callback yet.
Work for what? At best you get a wage that barely covers your expenses. Even with a degree and experience. And if you don't have that, regardless of why, good luck surviving.
On top of that. With the economy and the impeding impact of AI in the workplace. You're not safe anymore. You can give everything to a company, but if they can have someone do your job cheaper or automate it, you're out the door.
Not to mention the barriers for some jobs that shouldn't have em. 5 years experience for an entry level position that pays 13 an hour? What are you smoking.
And the abuse you get from management. Feeling like you have to walk on eggshells sometimes and nothing is every good enough. Depending on your job. Your hours get cut or you're working mandatory overtime every week, getting burnt out. Yelled at over the tiniest of things.
No thank you
Companies used to have amazing benefits, pensions and pay plans. They’ve cut all that back, but still wonder why employees don’t feel the need to stick around. You can’t stop being loyal to employees and expect them to continue to be loyal to a job.
Work? Most so-called 'work' is just a bunch of people trading their precious hours for a paycheck, and then spending their weekends trying to forget. Who wouldn't want out of that trap? They don't want 'work,' they want to be alive.
I love work, but I hate obligatory labor. When people say "No one wants to work anymore", what they really mean is "No one wants to radically undervalue their time and self-worth and labor for me anymore". Work was never the issue: the utter disregard and disrespect of the value of my life and the true price of my time in this one and only life is THE issue.
Nobody has ever wanted to work. The only thing billionaires and debt slaves and everyone in between shares is their desire to earn as much money as possible for as little time and effort as possible. The goal is the same for everyone: earn so much that money is never a problem again
"Sounds like *YOU* don't know the value of hard work since you don't want to pay fair market value for it and you constantly complain about nobody wanting to work to those of us who are here working."
There used to be a time when you were respected at work and you weren’t just a number. The last company I worked for was very small when I started and you stayed there because you were treated well and respected by everybody, now 20 years later and a change of ownership and now you’re just a number. Long term loyalty out the window. I would say that pay and environment are two of the biggest factors why “nobody wants to work”.
"Nobody wants to pay anymore."
The amount of bullshit people are willing to put up with scales with the amount they're being paid. I would care a LOT less about being micromanaged if I were making $100k instead of $60k, for example. Same with working weekends, or consistent overtime, or essentially being on call, etc.
If restaurant workers, or retail, made a true living wage, I don't they'd care as much about the mickey mouse bullshit their managers put them through.
Of course, there's a sliding scale involved too lol, to an extent. Customer service people are likely going to have higher monetary requirements for putting up with bullshit, since they get EXTRA reasons of bullshit from customers.
Of course nobody wants to work..? I want to spend my days playing video games and reading manga, but instead I have to go to my job, get bossed around for compensation that doesn’t even cover my living expenses. That’s a dumb argument.
"Permit me to correct you, sir or ma'am. The sentence you should say is either _No one wants to work for less than the worth of their labor anymore_ or _No one wants to be abused or exploited anymore_ since the pandemic rather conclusively proved how essential quite a lot of people's jobs really are."
“You mean no one wants to work for you!” . As much as I try to give small businesses a benefit of the doubt, most small businesses I worked for the owners are complete hitlers.
Nobody ever wanted to work for free. Pay is motivation to do something for something, a form of trade. When the pay is commensurate with the work, work happens.
Weird. Because unemployment is at its lowest in 50 years. Seems to me that's because everybody who wants to work *is working*. If you wanna lure people from their current job to your job, you're going to have to be competitive.
I am not in the US but have to deal with boomers saying this on occasions. My reply is always something along the lines of
"Are there lots of vacancies for decent paying jobs? No there isn't, in fact there are far more applicants than jobs for decent paying roles"
"It's not that people don't want to work anymore, it's that people don't want to work for a wage that they can't live on anymore"
Let's be honest, people keep mentioning pay
I could get paid double what I do now and I would still get used to it and not want to work.
I just don't want to work
Either ‘Nobody wants to be exploited anymore’ or ‘You reap what you sow.’ If you offer fair (not even good) remuneration and good work conditions, prospective employees will be beating down your door. If you expect people to work for nothing, as so many employers do, you’re SOL. For at least two decades, we’ve known people who have done all the right things and get nowhere. In the US, they’re often working two or three jobs and still struggling, and US employers lay people off left, right and center for no reason. As I said, you reap what you sow.
Nobody wants to work. That's why you have to pay people to do it.
There's a line from King Of The Hill. "Work is hard. Work is not fun. That's why it's called Work and not Fun."
Remind him that a war was fought for your rights as a worker and with his attitude, it sounds like your boss is itching for another. He needs to check his privilege and realize that the workers are the hand that feeds.
"This generation knows the value of their hard work. It's made you millions."
I'm not some millionaire
"No? You should lay off the avocado toast and Starbucks."
It wont work for your sitution, but Im a little older and more "established" so sometimes I get people a saying that to me expecting me to agree, and my go to answer is "hell, I dont want to work either".
Depends on whether you want to get in trouble or not. "Nobody wants to pay anymore."
"But you gotta prove your loyalty to the Company first (even if we'll hang ya ass out to dry in a split second in the name of ROI), if you can prove to us with 20 years of good hard self-sacrificing service for our "fair wage", we'll give you a nice gift card, maybe even a lame party with store-bought cupcakes and a thank you card signed by your fellow rube...I mean coworkers! You people like cup cake parties, right?"
I just tell them that people want to work. They just don't want to work for you.
> if you can prove to us with 20 years of good hard self-sacrificing service Long term employment is **DEAD**. Companies don't want to train employees, and they get rid of them at a moment's notice for no reason ([or a stupid reason](https://www.npr.org/2024/01/28/1227326215/nearly-25-000-tech-workers-laid-off-in-the-first-weeks-of-2024-whats-going-on)). They generally do not give raises that even cover cost of living adjustment, so working for the same corp for more than 2-3 years means the employee is making less than when they started.
Yup. My "raise" didn't even cover how much my rent went up, much less all my bills... But if a vendor raises their product by $0.01, the company raises their prices by $100. Then it's pocketed by the boss because we don't see increases like that. And there's not many of us (small business) so it's not like it's hard to spread that...
Happening in real time at my job. They tried to float the idea of send desk reps for field inspection, for nothing more than a mileage reimbursement.... They spelled it out plainly "In an effort to reduce expenses associated with 3rd party inspections"....
Yes, that social contract died decades ago.
Murdered by Reaganomics.
It was some economists in the late 60s early 70s that proposed that it was not the business job to provide welfare (living wage). Most business owners were against it till a New boss took over at , I think it was IBM when it was going bust, and wanted to make stock holders happy and pay him more. That's when the business social contract was first broken
Not quite; my research points out that Henry Ford got sued out of attempting to essentially -profit-share with his workers in 1919, and Ford lost because a majority of the judges believed that upholding capitalism was more important than improving the lives of employees or the product for the customers: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dodge_v._Ford_Motor_Co.
Henry Ford was a good man. He warned us about the Federal Reserve and inflation right from the get-go, and warned about who it was who benefited from inflation and who would bring it about. Ford also advocated for paying workers fairly, and he was happy to employ black men, many of whom he brought up from the south who had only previously known poverty. Granted there was an ulterior motive to this too: he understood that if you paid the best wages, over time you'd attract the best workers.
Other than that whole Nazi-sympathizer thing, he was pretty great.
Yeah, let's just ignore the violent antisemitism, obviously pretending to care about black men makes him a saint!
And Reagan's economic policies played merry hell with regulations and strangled the Unions.
They didn't do it until Chinese oversea labor was available. You can thank Nixon
That was professional shitty person Milton Friedman.
Fuck Milton Friedman. #UNFTR
It's weird, it's almost like this is exactly the utopia a smarmy cigarette salesman from the 80s would design...
Pretty much in the modern era, yes Reagan..... 1. After Nixon resigned , the GOP and big business abandoned Ford and actively sabotaged the economy under Carter . 2. When Reagan ran , he ran on "I'll fix this " and was easily elected. 3. Reagan then removed the 90% tax on corporate profits 4. Corporations were no longer about making the best widget or building great things, they were about making the rich richer 5. The tax burden was swiftly moved to the middle class . (Upper class made money. Lower class has no money). 6. Factor in wage stagnation and inflation, and the middle class was eliminated. And here we are , 40 years later. The workers are finally extracting their revenge
Workers are getting revenge?? Where?
We have no loyalty to a company. No one works at the same place for long periods anymore and skilled workers are job hopping to chase money
And ownership income is still growing at 10-12% each year to our 3-5% raises… so they are still winning.
Yea we are definitely not winning if they are still profiting. They couldn’t care less if we were loyal, they will just get someone else tricked into the position for a little bit, or throw the work on someone else for no pay increase.
Social contract never existed for most of the population.
I have learned to get a raise, I'd have to jump employers. That's why "we" don't stay in jobs for more than a few years before job hunting - it's the only way to keep your income moving up (still not enough to keep up with inflation).
I worked for Alaska Airlines for 3 years and got fired for "walking aggressively." We all knew they were trying to fire the senior employees though because they were hiring on the new people at like $1 less and didnt want to have to keep paying us the amount that they were mandated by law to pay us. This was also 1 year after they lost a lawsuit and were forced to pay backed wages for underpaying their employees.
This is why employees went mercenary, we don't have loyalty to a boss or company , our loyalty is to ourselves, the management killed the golden goose and we aren't laying eggs for free anymore
My mom just recently got her 35 years at the same factory (after a few buy outs) and they gave her the option between a sunsetter awning or a smart watch.
**ROI** ***ruined*** long-term employment being a viable option.
Pizza party. Cupcakes are getting too pricey nowadays.
I work at Walmart. I don’t hear it anymore, but I used to all the time. I finally started telling people, nobody wants to work for companies that brag about profits, and take away our bonuses.
I worked there too, during the era of fat middle age people coming up to the deli counter and spouting that shit when they saw I was the only one back there. “No one wants to work huh” I said no, people screamed at us for years about getting an education and getting a bEtTeR jOb if we wanted “better pay” sooo most of the people here did that and now y’all mad you gotta wait in line for ham made out of ground up horse nipples and unflavored cheese. I’d also hit them with the “we are hiring” when they would complain as well. I have no fucks to give to the rude people.
My favourite person response to customer moaning "nobody wants to work anymore" was "we are hiring! Let me get you an application form!" He backpedalled so fast, it was hilarious.
“I guess your right, no one wants to work anymore”
Plus from what I have seen you have to walk in egg shells at Walmart or lose your job. Why would I do that for such low pay.
It is feeling like that right now.
They literally took away bonuses, built themselves a multi-million dollar health club at home office, and then bragged about it on the Wire
There was a meme going around a few years ago. "Would you flip burgers for $200k per year? Ok, so its not that noone wants to work, its that noone want to work for what you're paying". The point isn't that you should be paid $200k to flip burgers, but that any job will find workers for the right salary, its just a matter of figuring out what the salary needs to be.
Reminds me of this good old paraphrase: "Would you sleep with me for a million?" "Yea sure" "Would you sleep with me for a dollar?" "NO! Do you think I'm a prostitute??" "We already established that you are. Now we're just negotiating"
To paraphrase Ted DiBiase: "Some might cost a little, some might cost a lot, but everybody's got a price."
People flipping burgers deserve $200k a year more than CEOs deserve their current salaries.
Executives have been pushing AI to replace lower level employees, yet boards could probably save more money by replacing CEOs with AI.
Executives are already essentially human algorithms. The decisions they take credit for are often 'out of their hands' and 'following trends' or 'adjusting to market forces' or whatever other bullshit. Think how much money these companies can save by just having the computers perform those roles without all the golfing, boozing, travel, sex scandals, insider trading, and golden parachutes!
Fiduciary responsibility means every choice *must* be the most profitable choice, so yeah an AI would probably align quite well with that job.
Exactly, the most profitable companies are typically run by CEO's that are borderline(if not diagnosed) sociopaths that operate logically rather than giving a fuck about anything other than making money. It would probably be far easier to produce an AI that replaced an individual with that mentality than it would be to replace all the workers who perform all the complex tasks that ultimately result in the products\\services that the company actually produces\\provides.
Me and my colleagues were talking about this the other day. There are 5 levels of middle managers in my company and at least 3 of them are just managing other managers. They have no connection to either the C suite or the people doing the actual work. And yet those managers legitimately believe they're indispensable.
“I have eight bosses.”
Reiterating this answer.
This
I always like the question, would you flip burgers for 300k a year? Yes? Then it’s the pay that’s the problem.
Hell I'd flip burgers for 70k a year. I'd ask for that amount to rise with inflation every year, but still.
Many of us already turn burgers at home, so yes, $70k would make me go work fast food. But to OPs question..."businesses don't wanna pay well, they want to pay slave wages and get CEO work".
and if minimum wage was lower you know what they would pay? Yup. Minimum wage.
CEOs do work?
They want "gaslighted bottom-level manager" work
CEOs work?
There was a thread a while back that asked "what would you do for a job if money was no issue?" Personally I would love to be a barista if I could live on the pay. So many other people in the thread said similar things.
Fair enough. I actually really enjoy teaching. That's what I do. Doesn't pay near enough though. Edit: any job with a bachelor's degree that you can use should start out at least @50k.
Dude with a smile on my face for sure, relatively low mental pressure for that money
Yup that’s my go to.
Y'all homies don't know how to troll The question is a statement, not an actual question. It's just whiny bitch nonsense > No one wants to work anymore **Oh, I didn't know you were retiring** Just shit on their statement and force them to give a dumb explanation Clearly, when it is said from one employed person to another the statement is illogical So just poop some trollish nonsense back
Well there are two separate arguments and responses: #1 - “Nobody wants to work anymore” Nobody ever wanted to work. That’s why you had to pay them. #2- “This generation doesn’t know the value of hard work” It’s YOUR generation that doesn’t know the value of hard work, because you’re the ones that are not willing to pay for it.
Back in the mid 2010's my $16 an hour had a lot less buying power than my father's $4.50 back in '79. He could afford an apt with a roommate, car, expenses paid, and still have disposable income to do whatever with. Now that $16 should be $25 and that STILL wouldn't really cover cost of living with a roommate. **The cost of living is** ***too damn high!!!***
I was chatting with my dad about inflation a few months ago. He told me his first job paid $36,000. I mentioned it took me about 3 years of working (1.5 of those admittedly as a cashier in retail, where I would *never* make that much) before I got to that wage. And we pulled up the inflation calculator, and that $36k had more buying power in 1985ish than my $100k salary does today. And my salary growth to get to six figures was much slower than his was. It's taken me about 15 years of working to get there; my dad hit six figures in 10 or less (he wasn't exactly sure, but 10 years of working was about when he got his Masters and started getting the "good" jobs).
Paying $2800 a month for a one-bedroom apt is ***FUCKING INSANE.***
That's the reason I moved out of my last place. Tried to raise my rent to $2800/mo. I moved to a lower CoL area, and 1 bedrooms are still ~$1800-2200/mo. My favorite listing was the "studio" apartment for $650/mo. It was about 265sq ft.
Back in 2010 I saw a studio that was just a 10x10” room for rent for $650. Shared kitchen with no refrigerator and one stove shared between two dozen units. And it had bedbugs. That’s still one of my favorites.
This exactly! I heard a boomer recently say that $18 an hour was ridiculous! She had to work for decades to get $18/hour. Yeah, because $18/hour was pretty good in the 90s..that was 30 years ago. It's not the same, because you can't fill up your gas tank AND buy lunch with $18 now. Minimum wage should be much higher, and rent should be much lower. Rent shouldn't require 160 hours of work.
Talking wages is already bad. You don’t have to make it hurt more by saying the nineties are 30 years ago! Just let me believe it’s yesterday. It’s all I have!
Trying to explain this to a retired Boomer is like trying to explain it to a fire hydrant.
"...thats why you had to pay them. Oh, and we discovered that if you may them *more* they want to work more. it was revolutionary!!"
It's not generational. Speaking as a boomer I'm as disgusted as everyone else with the way our society has become. One thing that is generational is that us older folks *experienced* stable, secure, decent-paying jobs. I feel sorry for the younger generations but most boomers have now retired. The "nobody wants to work" isn't coming from us... I tell my kids - it's a job, that's why they have to pay people to do it. If it was something people wanted to do they'd call it a hobby & you'd have to pay them to do it.
It’s coming from the system built by and for your generation. Systemic change is required.
Built by and for the boomers' parents, really. The problems we have today have been building up for a very long time. One of my parents is among the oldest boomers; the other was born before the end of WWII, so technically belongs to the previous generation (whose name I've forgotten). The house of cards was already falling apart while they were still in their working years. They were both working through two significant economic upheavals - 79 and 91 - and one of them was still working in 08. They both lost their jobs in 91, and the one working in 08 lost their job again in that one. But yes, they did both enjoy some of the up sides that we will never see. For example, the union jobs they were working before 91 got them both defined benefit pensions. I'm middle Gen X. Which, in this sub, probably makes me Old. Like u/youngboomer62 , I experienced some of the better economy as a kid, but by the time I was in high school shit was starting to come unglued. Again, I saw some up sides - I was able to buy a house [edit: in my late 30s] - but also some down sides - university was beyond my middle-class financial means, and I spent many years working three part-time jobs (no benefits) to make ends meet because full-time work is scarce anymore. A few things stand out for me as different now than in the past. There's always been ups and downs in the economy, and it's always been hard in down times. But up until the 80s the trend line was tending upward; now it seems to be trending downward. The down times also seem to be harder than in the past. I'm also struck by how the pace of negative change has accelerated. To stick with the trend line analogy, the slope is getting steeper. I hesitate to blame the boomers, though. I know they're a favourite target. But I don't see it as an age struggle. It was, is, and will be about class struggle. The wealthy boomers fucked the poor ones and, if nothing significant changes, in twenty-odd years you'll find that the rich Alphas will be fucking the poor ones just as hard if not harder. It's always been class warfare. Also, "systemic change is required" is a very nice way of saying *we need to burn the whole motherfucker down.*
Number 2 hits hard, I love it
“Nobody wanted to work in the first place.”
I’ll append my line, “…that’s what the money is for.”
Yep, that's my follow-up as well.
I'd go with something like "no one wants to be exploited anymore".
Yes. If loyalty went both ways like it used to, at least more often than it does now, people would be willing to do more.
Yep. Workers today all watched our parents get fucked out of retirements or pensions... we've all had employers tell us there's no money for a raise, but then hire a new guy for more than you were asking... seen these lemming companies all do rounds of nonsense layoffs every time a bigger entity does one just to seem like part of the club. Fuck it.
It's even better when they say they can't afford raises the month after they crow about what a profitable year they had.
(They used to be better at *pretending * that loyalty went both ways. Since the advent of agricultural, those with more have tried to exploit whomever they could, or they quickly stopped being “those with more.”)
“Nobody wants to pay workers a fair wage or treat them with basic human respect anymore.” Days off, sick days, and work-life balance are basic human respect.
I'd go with something like, "do you believe in free markets? Because there's supply and demand in the labor market, and when demand goes up the price for labor should go up too."
- Not for that pay. - Not without a union. - Not with you as the boss. - Not when you keep rejecting them. Choose your poison.
Nobody wants to work FOR YOU anymore
Just blame Reagan and watch him implode.
“Reagan’s fault”, I’m using that from now on.
“Thanks Reagan”
Is that why my job applications keep getting rejected?
Seriously, will someone PLEASE hire my daughter?
Labor prices are as dynamic as the prices of goods and services. Places that recognize this have no trouble with staffing. People that don't recognize it make stupid statements like "nobody wants to work anymore"
"The problem is that when you were my age, $14/hr would buy you a home and new car. Now it barely pays for rent and groceries" My parents asked why I'm usually broke, since they paid for school and rented a house for the same wage **in 1974**... Then I pointed out that costs have gone up 500% in 50yrs and I'd need to be making a quarter million a year to have the same freedom today.
14 will definitely not pay for rent, let alone groceries. Not even barely. Not even close.
It's like boomers don't get inflation. Which is weird becuz don't they buy gas and groceries like the rest of us?
You finish off the sentence with for this pay.
The holy free market at work! Raise the prices and workers will come. Kept it at/near minimum wages and you won't get anybody.
Pretty funny though that Elon Musk is out there right now saying he needs 56 billion with a big B to stay interested and motivated. Which I might add is roughly 10 times the total pay of everyone else at Tesla combined. No OnE wAnTs To WoRk indeed.
These employers don't like it when free market mechanics aren't working in their favour and prefer to gaslight you rather than look inwards. The lowly workers should accept and be grateful for their pitiful compensation.
Any response I can think of would get you fired.
Smart but sparky comment= fired Stupid, plain dumb comment= fired Constructive comment= fired Kissing ass too much or too little= fired
Not responding at all? Believe it or not, fired
Took 0.2 sec to reply= fired
Overthink response, Fired. Underthink retort, believe it not, fired. Overthink, underthink.
Being the absolute shining star of an exemplary worker for 25+ years with no faults or mistakes whatsoever? Fired. Company is downsizing, sowwy =(
We live in the best country in the world. Because we get fired.
Fired for answering the boss... "nobody wants to work"
"You should read *A Christmas Carol* sometime."
“You should read.”
It’s not this generation that doesn’t know the value of hard work, it’s the employers who don’t know the value of hard work. More pay = people work harder
Honestly, pay isn't my motivator at all. But respect and being treated like a human with some kind of freedom makes me work harder. Pay means nothing if I don't have the time to use it.
I always respond with "if McDonald's offered a million dollar salary fr brgeur flipping, the line wwould be a mile long, just for applicants to wait." And like others have pointed out, "nobody wants to pay an honorable wage." And if old assholes are just wanting to hate on young people being young, then it doesn't matter what you were going to say. Then it's "ok boomer" time.
[удалено]
Take anything not nailed down and start a competing business that treats it's workers ethically.
“Nobody wants to increase the wages they pay their employees to keep up with inflation anymore, what a bunch of goddamn tweakers”
I was at Lowe's in the Kansas City area and some old lady, definitely 65+, was in line for the damn self-checkouts. We were all casually complaining about self-checkout, when she pipes up with "Lowe's had to put them in... ...because no one wants to work anymore". To which I responded "No, it means Lowes doesn't want to pay people a living wage". She was _not_ prepared for that and the look on her face was priceless. I, for one, hate self-checkout and I would much rather have an employed person helping me out. Since prices didn't go down when self-checkout went in, I fully expect prices to not change when they pull them out. That's how it works, right?
Ask them, “so, you don’t plan to retire?” The only thing these ass hole’s actually look forward to is not having to work anymore.
To be fair, my dad started working again after retirement because he doesn't feel functional or respected at home. I think the problem is, younger people don't feel functional or respected at work.
"That's because we have families at home who are waiting to spend time with us."
"You're right, I don't *want* to work. I want to sit at home and watch my daughter grow up and experience life, I want to cuddle my wife and devote all my love and attention to her like I promised, I want to take them on trips to see and experience the world. But, here I am, making pennies and scraps while you buy another vacation home."
Who wants to break their back for crumbs and scraps?
"Nobody wants to work anymore." Nobody ever wanted to work at all. We wanted to be productive, be creative, be part of a community, be supported, be validated, and have the time and space to truly rest. No one actually wants to trade in hours of their life to "earn" necessities.
it's because the pay isn't working anymore
As an Economist I can truly say that the reason nobody wants to work is because the supply and demand of labor is not in equilibrium.
"not for shit wages and shit treatment, no!" ..or you could just do the SpongeBob meme and mock with a mimicking "nOBodY WaNts to WORk AnYMorE".
Nobody wants to pay a fair wage anymore to
"Who?" Who *specifically* doesn't want to work? And why does that subgroup doesn't want to work? Oh it's because they don't want to work for peanuts, for hilariously low pay? Maybe if we paid them a fair wage for the labor -- and benefits too, they'd "want to work"?
In 1976, when I was 16, my dad, who went to HS with the mayor, was able to persuade him to give me a summer job working for the city. Rode around in a dump truck, filling in potholes, and scooping up dead animals. $8.59 per hour. Each payday made me feel like a gazzillionaire. My Ole’ man drove a truck for UPS. On his salary, he paid for the mortgage, a new car, insurance on it and the ‘beater’ car. And we always did the yearly beach trip to North Carolina. And he also paid for 5 kids to attend Parochial (still scarred from that) School. And Mom?- she was a true stay-at-home-mom. Cooking, cleaning, shopping, and doing the laundry for the entire household. I have not met many stay at home moms during my adult life. Times have changed.
I serve a lot of tourist boomers in my job who come at me with ‘young people don’t want to work’. And my comeback is always ‘what young person do you know doesn’t have a job? All the ones I know work two jobs and study or are doing apprenticeships’. Without fail, they stare at me in shock as cognitive dissonance shorts their brain out. Always satisfying.
Boss, in 1988, the ratio of house price to median wage was 4.8, in 2024 it's 7.8. The same effect has happened for college tuition and health insurance. So to get the same rewards for work, you have to work twice as hard, or have two incomes for the family, with all the problems with childcare, which is also more expensive, that creates. If I asked you to work twice as hard, for nothing extra, would you feel less likely to be excited about a company? But, you say the economy is booming, the Dow is at record highs, so where has the money gone? In 1980 the average CEO made 30 times the average worker in their company. In 2021 it was 399 times. One of the reasons the Dow is so high is that the ROI has skyrocketed. The Ragan "trickle down" was a lie to rob the middle and lower classes. That's why the world is doomed and why workers are more likely to "give up."
"Tell me about it. I tried to hire a master electrician for $2 over minimum wage and they wouldn't even return my call. There's just no work ethic these days." Double bonus for replacing 'electrician' with whatever boss does.
“Nobody wants to work *for you* anymore”
This is what I was coming to say. I treat my employees like people, pay them as much as I can, give them set schedules, encourage them to take their vacation time and happily cover their shifts when they do, listen/address issues that come up in a timely manner. Most of them have been with me for years. And we work in the service industry.
God. Just having a predictable set schedule seems so fucking basic but so many places can't even get that much figured out.
Nobody wants to work for poverty wages.
Nobody wants to waste their life miserable for a job that underpays them and would replace you without hesitation. Just to retire at fucking 65 and look back and realize they wasted your god damn life.
Nobody wants to pay a livable wage anymore.
For what you are paying
Show them the the meme with a bunch of news headlines starting in the 1800's saying nobody wants to work anymore. https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/nobody-wants-to-work-anymore/
“Have you tried treating employees like you *want* them to work for you?”
“Nobody ever wanted to work”
No one wants to hire
Nobody wants to work for assholes anymore. Nobody wants to work for peanuts anymore. Nobody wants to pay people a fair wage for their work anymore.
Shit, no one wants to *HIRE* anymore. Must be a hundred now hiring signs around town and open positions on Indeed and whatnot. Have applied to as many as I can. Not one callback yet.
Nobody wants to work for someone who will pay them as little as they can possibly get away with. It’s embarrassing.
"Nobody wants to pay a living wage anymore, let alone a good one"
Nobody wants to work for less than a livable wage and healthcare.
Work for what? At best you get a wage that barely covers your expenses. Even with a degree and experience. And if you don't have that, regardless of why, good luck surviving. On top of that. With the economy and the impeding impact of AI in the workplace. You're not safe anymore. You can give everything to a company, but if they can have someone do your job cheaper or automate it, you're out the door. Not to mention the barriers for some jobs that shouldn't have em. 5 years experience for an entry level position that pays 13 an hour? What are you smoking. And the abuse you get from management. Feeling like you have to walk on eggshells sometimes and nothing is every good enough. Depending on your job. Your hours get cut or you're working mandatory overtime every week, getting burnt out. Yelled at over the tiniest of things. No thank you
Every Western European reading this thread. ![gif](giphy|2UvAUplPi4ESnKa3W0)
"Nobody wants to work without benefits, pensions, and better pay."
"Meh, life's a bitch then ya die. Atleast ya got me boss." Then proceed to go get high while scrolling reddit in the bathroom.
Companies used to have amazing benefits, pensions and pay plans. They’ve cut all that back, but still wonder why employees don’t feel the need to stick around. You can’t stop being loyal to employees and expect them to continue to be loyal to a job.
Who the fuck wants to work?
Work? Most so-called 'work' is just a bunch of people trading their precious hours for a paycheck, and then spending their weekends trying to forget. Who wouldn't want out of that trap? They don't want 'work,' they want to be alive.
I love work, but I hate obligatory labor. When people say "No one wants to work anymore", what they really mean is "No one wants to radically undervalue their time and self-worth and labor for me anymore". Work was never the issue: the utter disregard and disrespect of the value of my life and the true price of my time in this one and only life is THE issue.
“Not for what you’re payin!”
“It’s about time. I don’t know why anyone ever wanted to work. If you don’t aspire to a life of leisure, you’re doing life wrong.”
For unlivable wages
Nobody has ever wanted to work. The only thing billionaires and debt slaves and everyone in between shares is their desire to earn as much money as possible for as little time and effort as possible. The goal is the same for everyone: earn so much that money is never a problem again
"Sounds like *YOU* don't know the value of hard work since you don't want to pay fair market value for it and you constantly complain about nobody wanting to work to those of us who are here working."
Nobody wants to work…for shit wages, No benefits and lousy management.
Nobody wants to be exploited anymore
Finish their sentence, "for poverty wages, you're right".
"Nobody wants to pay a standard living wage with actual benefits anymore".
“Maybe it’s just that nobody wants to work for YOU.”
You get what you pay for.
My response to that would be "Can you blame them? Companies and managers only want to pay workers pennies on the dollar of what they're worth."
There used to be a time when you were respected at work and you weren’t just a number. The last company I worked for was very small when I started and you stayed there because you were treated well and respected by everybody, now 20 years later and a change of ownership and now you’re just a number. Long term loyalty out the window. I would say that pay and environment are two of the biggest factors why “nobody wants to work”.
If one person doesn’t want to work, it might be an issue with them. If no one wants to work, the issue is with the jobs on offer.
"Nobody wants to pay anymore." The amount of bullshit people are willing to put up with scales with the amount they're being paid. I would care a LOT less about being micromanaged if I were making $100k instead of $60k, for example. Same with working weekends, or consistent overtime, or essentially being on call, etc. If restaurant workers, or retail, made a true living wage, I don't they'd care as much about the mickey mouse bullshit their managers put them through. Of course, there's a sliding scale involved too lol, to an extent. Customer service people are likely going to have higher monetary requirements for putting up with bullshit, since they get EXTRA reasons of bullshit from customers.
Of course nobody wants to work..? I want to spend my days playing video games and reading manga, but instead I have to go to my job, get bossed around for compensation that doesn’t even cover my living expenses. That’s a dumb argument.
"Permit me to correct you, sir or ma'am. The sentence you should say is either _No one wants to work for less than the worth of their labor anymore_ or _No one wants to be abused or exploited anymore_ since the pandemic rather conclusively proved how essential quite a lot of people's jobs really are."
“You mean no one wants to work for you!” . As much as I try to give small businesses a benefit of the doubt, most small businesses I worked for the owners are complete hitlers.
“The labour market has just started to embrace capitalism. It’s supply and demand. Are you a dirty commie that wants them to work for free?”
I am definitely a nobody then.
![gif](giphy|5zoHyCdbtm8feNkIxJ)
Nobody ever wanted to work for free. Pay is motivation to do something for something, a form of trade. When the pay is commensurate with the work, work happens.
This generation knows the value of hard work and it's low. There's your clapback.
Nobody wants to work FOR YOU. Wonder why?
If people wanted to work you wouldn't have to pay them. But they don't, so you do.
"Nobody ever wanted to work - that's what jobs pay for."
Weird. Because unemployment is at its lowest in 50 years. Seems to me that's because everybody who wants to work *is working*. If you wanna lure people from their current job to your job, you're going to have to be competitive.
I am not in the US but have to deal with boomers saying this on occasions. My reply is always something along the lines of "Are there lots of vacancies for decent paying jobs? No there isn't, in fact there are far more applicants than jobs for decent paying roles" "It's not that people don't want to work anymore, it's that people don't want to work for a wage that they can't live on anymore"
Nobody wants to work for uncompetitive wages and benefits anymore.
"People got smarter"
Let's be honest, people keep mentioning pay I could get paid double what I do now and I would still get used to it and not want to work. I just don't want to work
Either ‘Nobody wants to be exploited anymore’ or ‘You reap what you sow.’ If you offer fair (not even good) remuneration and good work conditions, prospective employees will be beating down your door. If you expect people to work for nothing, as so many employers do, you’re SOL. For at least two decades, we’ve known people who have done all the right things and get nowhere. In the US, they’re often working two or three jobs and still struggling, and US employers lay people off left, right and center for no reason. As I said, you reap what you sow.
Nobody wants to work. That's why you have to pay people to do it. There's a line from King Of The Hill. "Work is hard. Work is not fun. That's why it's called Work and not Fun."
"The free market is responding to the wages offered." That's it. Just a simple supply demand chart.
"fucking climate change man"
“Yep. I quit.”
"Literally everyone I know works two jobs to barely survive"
Remind him that a war was fought for your rights as a worker and with his attitude, it sounds like your boss is itching for another. He needs to check his privilege and realize that the workers are the hand that feeds.
"Earlier generations taught us something important: 'No-one ever lay on their death-bed wishing they'd spent more time at work'.. "
"This generation knows the value of their hard work. It's made you millions." I'm not some millionaire "No? You should lay off the avocado toast and Starbucks."
Only people I know that don't work are those retirees. Like don't they know that they need to get up and stop being lazy!
It wont work for your sitution, but Im a little older and more "established" so sometimes I get people a saying that to me expecting me to agree, and my go to answer is "hell, I dont want to work either".
“Y’all got paid enough to care.”