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Comment by citilife | Hacker News Reader

> The restaurant owners are in the same predicament as their workers. If it's not worth pursuing for your time and money, then pursue something else more worthwhile. Adjust or die.

Oh I (and my family members) agree, they're trying to sell the businesses.

Typically small time businesses like this are highly tied with personal finances. You can't just "close up shop" when you have a $50k loan and no job lined up.

Again, it's more complex than people recognize. For instance, you can raise your prices (and my family has), but they have to compete with other chain restaurants. So they can't raise prices too much faster than the competition.

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>>Typically small time businesses like this are highly tied with personal finances. You can't just "close up shop" when you have a $50k loan and no job lined up.

Understandable, of course. Some of my sentiment was informed by the article-in-question's supposition that workers were being too demanding in terms of wages and a plea for sympathy that rang hollow in terms of her arguments (IMO at least). Workers do not owe anything to anybody - if a more prodigious opportunity presents itself, it ought to be taken.

The pain points are going to become more apparent as we try and sort through a new standard that has upended much of what we took for granted emotionally, socially and culturally (including morality and finances in the latter).

Wishing your family good luck.

> Some of my sentiment was informed by the article-in-question's supposition that workers were being too demanding in terms of wages and a plea for sympathy that rang hollow in terms of her arguments (IMO at least).

She complained about being screwed and left out by govt programs, and about Facebook commenters who called for higher pay like it was something she hadn't thought of. Didn't notice any bashing of workers.

Read the article again. She talks about Uber helping her business and that tips don't help her bottom line, which is... categorically untrue: they save her from having to pay her employees a living wage and hiring delivery people, which she would be paying a living wage to.

then she goes on a rant about how people don't want to work because "unemployment" during A PANDEMIC! Boo-hoo to someone who cares less about he health and lives of her employees than her bottom line. Again... this is coming from someone who is already financially stable with several successful businesses and a very successful spouse. Completely oblivious in her perspective.

Read the article again, this time slower and with fewer prejudices.

To point out one last thing: most restaurants fail. She is complaining about being successful but not as much as she'd like... while the US experiences a 4.2% unemployment rate, which is amazing given where we were a year ago. Talk about lacking any perspective.

I don't agree, just want to provide some context

> 4.2% unemployment rate, which is amazing given where we were a year ago

That's not exactly an accurate way to describe what's happening...

Look at the 25 year trends:

https://tradingeconomics.com/united-states/employed-persons

https://tradingeconomics.com/united-states/employment-rate

59% of the population is currently employed, down from 65% in 2000. We're down ~2.5% from where we were in 2020. Which doesn't exactly seems to jive with the reported "unemployment rate" - https://tradingeconomics.com/united-states/unemployment-rate

In 2020, 158M were employed, now 155M are employed (with millions increase in population). We're probably looking at a gap of at least 5 million.

Average working hours have not increased:

https://tradingeconomics.com/united-states/average-weekly-ho...

Fewer people are in the workforce, this is not debatable.

What is debatable is whether that matters. The unemployment rate is based on those seeking work, not those who are of age to work.

Seems to me, if unemployment an federal aid is not the culprit, then the simpler explanation is wages.

Wages are too low. This is precisely what the blog writer's argument is against: increasing wages.

Supply and demand didn't stop being a thing and your charts prove it.

There are people genuinely exiting the workforce, however. Biggest of note is those over 65 that were previously working part or full time that have decided to rely solely on retirement income.[0] You have have a lot of exits due to childcare related issues.[1] The workforce has genuinely contracted during the pandemic.

[0] https://www.npr.org/2021/08/23/1028993124/these-older-worker...

[1] https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2021-10-09/child-car...

ETA: Looking on the other side, there is likely some unknowable number of 16-18 year olds that are not entering the workforce yet, that would have pre-pandemic.

> then she goes on a rant about how people don't want to work because "unemployment" during A PANDEMIC!

She specifically says "I don't blame them" (emphasis hers) referring to those people on unemployment. she is complaining about the incentives created by the govt program, which I referred to.

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