I think it’s an interesting topic. I just looked it up and to be in the top 10% of salary earners here in PA, it’s 223k/yr. For comparisons, in California, it’s 295k. At the bottom end of the spectrum, In West Virginia, it’s 163k. At the top end of the spectrum is DC at 361k.
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There is less supply. Many people in those industries were tired of no paychecks during COVID and left the industry.
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And, of course the CARES Act had nothing to do with that. 
Of course, COVID-19 itself probably had something to do with it. People who could get other jobs may not want to continue working in a lower paid job with frequent exposure to the sometimes-virus-bearing general public.
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What jobs were those? 
Mentions some industries where former restaurant workers have gone.
Describes some of the reasons why restaurant workers leave the industry:
https://www.npr.org/2021/07/20/1016081936/low-pay-no-benefits-rude-customers-restaurant-workers-quit-at-record-rate
Collection of anecdotes from former restaurant workers:
https://www.sfchronicle.com/projects/2021/sf-bay-area-former-restaurant-workers/
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People let themselves go during the pandemic. Lots of weight gain.
Well, the very first article a cites another article that gives a lot of credit to unemployment and stimulus checks. So, it’s a mixture of carrot and stick inducements leading to higher wages:
Now hiring: How the labor shortage is squeezing full-service restaurants | Restaurant Dive
The stimulus money and extended unemployment benefits may have helped many switch industries by letting them do a more extended job search and/or retraining for a different job.
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Yup. Why work in a salon with people coughing all over you, when you can do an online coding academy, earn $70K as soon as you finish the program, and work in your jammies?
My salon just closed. The owner is retiring, and the other employees have either gone back to school or finished one of the aforementioned programs. None of them wanted to go back to work if the owner didn’t require vaccines once they were available (and she did not want to fight that battle). I’m excited for them. I was a “couple of times a year” client anyway, so it’s not like I was keeping a roof over anyone’s head, and the stylists are excited to earn a living without a stranger breathing all over you.
Will be interesting to see…
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from beginning to end and everything in the middle!
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There are so many services that we have become accustomed to that require in person contact. You have seen the result of the current employment situation in one small area of your life. For many this problem can become critical if more necessary services are curtailed. We are seeing this to a degree even now with nursing shortages and shortages in assisted living facilities. It’s not just a shortage of employees (I think to some degree that is artificial) but a lack of facilities that can provide the service at a cost that they can remain in business (see your salon). We can implement a minimum wage but the free market does not go away in a command economy it merely adapts to the controls. Usually by higher prices or scarcity. This usually ends up hurting the very people it was designed to help. Higher wages don’t help much when you can’t purchase what you want or need either because it is not available or if it is you can’t afford it.
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The discussion of inequality goes back hundreds of years, at least. There is nothing new under the sun. If this is truly driving the behavior of stressed-out, hyperachieving young people, they are sadly sheltered and maladjusted.
And if the concern over climate change is somehow exacerbating the stress, young people should do something about it instead of allowing themselves to clam up with fear. (Complaining and shaming politicians doesn’t count as “doing something.”)
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Esp since some of the folks who stuck with their jobs as drivers, teachers, restaurant owners/workers, and more died and won’t be coming back. They need to be replaced or in some cases, what they owned has closed.
I just finished reading a fascinating, and tangentially-relevant to this discussion, piece: George Packer: The Four Americas - The Atlantic
Of particular interest:
"The fate of this generation of young professionals has been cursed by economic stagnation and technological upheaval. The jobs their parents took for granted have become much harder to get, which makes the meritocratic rat race even more crushing. Law, medicine, academia, media—the most desirable professions—have all contracted. The result is a large population of overeducated, underemployed young people living in metropolitan areas.
The historian Peter Turchin coined the phrase elite overproduction to describe this phenomenon. He found that a constant source of instability and violence in previous eras of history, such as the late Roman empire and the French Wars of Religion, was the frustration of social elites for whom there were not enough jobs. Turchin expects this country to undergo a similar breakdown in the coming decade."
I guess I should get past my worries about my daughter majoring in Social Work…
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There is plenty of social work that needs to be done. But no one seems to want to pay for it per se, leaving much of it to be done by those in other professions such as police officers.
Is she considering a career as a police officer?
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Or teachers.
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Teachers I agree with. Police officers I think are more often called upon to be drug addictions counselors/experts. Unfortunately, it’s a bit like being asked to be a mechanic when the engine is running.
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A neighbor of mine is a cop (almost 20 years on the force). He is in despair about the amount of “tactical training” they get (weapons, hostage negotiations, when to call the bomb squad, how to evacuate an apartment building safely without someone getting trampled) and the dearth of psychological training (domestic disputes, how to communicate with someone in the throes of a psychotic break, how to remove children from a violent situation without further traumatizing them). If only it was just the drug addiction stuff- it’s everything else that keeps him up at night.
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In some places, one of the most common kinds of calls for police service is the presence of an unsightly (to the caller) homeless person.
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