Member-only story
Why workers aren’t coming back
It has nothing to do with government hand-outs.
The numbers are in. States that cut the $300 unemployment bonus don’t have any better job numbers than states that didn’t. Why? What’s going on? Why aren’t people returning to work?
Money is only a small part of the issue; the biggest part is about relationships. Since a successful business is a marriage between management and labor, let’s look at what many of the marriages looked like before Covid and what happened in the last year or so. We’ll call management Mark and Labor Lisa. (If one of these is your name and you don’t like me using it, get over it. My name is Karen.)
Before Covid, Mark and Lisa’s marriage was chugging along OK. Mark brought in good money and Lisa cooked cleaned, raised the kids, handled all holiday preparation, and occasionally entertained Mark's boss or clients. You know, the things that allowed Mark to bring in good money. However, Mark really didn’t see Lisa as his equal. She’s just a housewife, He thought “I bring in the money and I make the big decisions, so I’m the important one.” Mark insisted on being having things his way 90% of the time and mostly ignoring Lisa’s needs. Lisa stuck around because it wasn’t terrible. She had a nice house, some money to spend, and though he was a bit of a dick, Mark didn’t actively abuse her. Besides, the guys on the dating scene…
