Lived experience, while important, should be treated like anecdotes.

While anecdotes are valuable, the plural of anecdote != data.

Should we help people whose lived experience is worse than ours? Absolutely.

Does the mere existence of people whose lived experience contradicts that of the aggregate majority suggest that we ought to upend our systems? No, and that's the point.

In general, when we see (overwhelming) empirical outcomes that don't confirm our priors, we ought to shift our priors. We do this in the context of climate change, there's no reason we shouldn't also do this in the context of the economy and labor markets.