At least two things happened here:

- The pandemic gave most people an unusually-long period of time at home to help them realize all the things they could have been doing (e.g. spending more time with family, not being stuck in a commute), if only their work had not been sucking up all their time and energy.

- Income vs. expenses changed to the point where people couldn’t hope to pay off their debts even if they worked. Work has not been paying anywhere near enough. At that point, what is there to lose: if you will be swamped and in debt with work, and you will also be swamped and in debt without work, at least the 2nd option means finally not having to put up with the crap from many workplaces.

Also, it has just become clearer and clearer where all the lies were told. Society did not treat “essential” workers that way at all. There was all kinds of prioritization of bottom line over employee health, especially early on. We all assumed that governments could/would do a lot more to help. Heap on all the unfilled promises for promotions, raises, etc. and many workers just have no reason at all to give a crap anymore.

Why is the central bank inflation target typically 2%?

Well if you target 0% and any actual result below 0% happens, that's deflation which is a disaster for economies.

If inflation is say 10%. Maximum employment is near certainly impossible. Debt will be expensive and the economy crawls to a halt. Who wants to pay 10% interest on their student debt?

So where in between do you have a good price stability? It tends to be around 2%. It allows for error in measurement, it provides safe cushion.

The USA is at 7% inflation. This means the central bank is not doing their job. They by mandate should have drastically increased interest rates. Inflation almost certainly is out of control now. Looking at central bank balance sheets that are very far from balance, and looking at money supply M2. There's a solid 40% inflation coming. Lets say it sticks to 7%, this inflation will last probably 4 years.

When inflation is so high and interest rates are not. The people winning are those in debt. Which is the government and youngins. However, it also means you cant save money. You must spend money as soon as possible. Tourism is dead for many years.

Flipside, what does this also do? It pressures salaries. You are making 7% less this year but you're making 115% less the next year. So anyone in demand will be in demand and be able to buck the inflation curve.

The people most hurt by high inflation are those who just retired. They no longer can demand more $ for their productivity. Their 'safe' investments are way below inflation. They don't realize yet they cant afford to be retired.

> The Great Renegotiation is also a byproduct of inflation. Workers are seeking better pay to keep up with the rising cost of living.

Keeping in mind small business is collectively the largest employer and contributor to US output... let's remember the coming rate hikes will greatly reduce available cash to small businesses that operate with credit lines, credit card debt or via home equity lines. That is a LOT of US businesses. Now add to this increased input costs due to inflation. Now add increased tax rates. You can also expect lending requirements will tighten.

So, it's worth considering the odds of worker prosperity (vs) the odds of a wave of business failures and associated unemployment/underemployment in many (but by no means all) sectors.

Personally, I think the Fed & Treasury will continue fiscal stimulus and capitulate hard in the face of a deep recession. More of the same can kicking, and we'll see what seems like prosperity. In reality, it's a delay of an inevitable downturn unless some magical productivity innovation or goods/services advance emerges to rescue the US economy.

> But there are growing fears of a wage-price spiral in which workers, seeing rising prices, demand higher pay — and companies, having to pay their workers more, start charging higher prices. These higher prices lead workers to demand even higher pay, leading companies to charge higher prices, and so on. It's the inflationary cycle of nightmares.

Can someone explain to me how this works? I'd assume wages to prices are a bit asymmetric. E.g., McD's sells 100 burgers per employee per hour at $2 each. It raises wages from $10 to $15/hour. To keep margin, it now needs to charge $2.05 - which is an increase, sure, but asymmetric: a 50% increase in wages implies a 2.5% increase in prices.

Assuming that occurs everywhere - why do workers need to now demand still-higher pay?

I think it's a bit of both.

It's not only about the money. Many people are realising just now that they don't get paid enough to take all the crap they get from work.

Anecdotally, I know a handful of engineers who quit their jobs because of this. They were making good money, just not good enough for the number of sleepless nights and stressful days they were going through.

I'm at the point where I would sacrifice $$$ for a better work-life balance. Unfortunately my boss just gave me a raise (boo-hoo, right?) so that he could do less work and I could do more.

My goal this year is to fuck off and live in another country for 4-6 weeks, as vacation and/or as remote work. Then extend that to 2-3 months next year and ~6 months thereafter.

I'm pushing 50 and aware that I've only got so many "good" years left.

I am part of this resignation wave, and quit (retired?) last spring with no intention of going back to work. I managed to do this in my 30s, but I do feel slight FOMO of people with high paying tech jobs.

Part of me says, am I missing out on my highest earnings years? I'd like to sit on a beach but with a family, most of my days are getting groceries, doing dishes, folding clothes and driving kids around. It's not glamorous but it feels better than work life.

Exactly, I asked my manager for raise to match market rate. I received meh in response. It was great motivator to start job search. I don't blame her though. It is just how it is, ignore employees while chasing birds in bush lol

I like this framing. This is 10+ years of pay and quality of life increases for many, all coming at once. Or, at least, the improvement is just now restarting.

Folks should renegotiate. Good on them.

> "Yet, despite all the quitting and renegotiating, the real wage for the average American worker — meaning the true value of their paycheck after taking into account inflation — fell by 2.4% in 2021."

Because most are still not moving. If a worker won't leave under these conditions, there is no reason to ever give them a raise as you don't need it to retain them.

"The Great Resignation" feels a bit like a phrase that folks have grasped on to and just attach the narrative they want to believe to it.

Constant articles and such with very little data. Very frustrating as a reader.

The idea that amid a pandemic and such that there are a variety of reasons seems backed up by the data, although I admit that's what I'm inclined to believe / seen.

Text version without “Cookie Consent and Choices”: https://text.npr.org/1075115539/

The social contact has been rewritten multiple times in the favour of elites during crises.

The people are rebelling against the reality of the new social contract.

I rarely see any mention of how just so many people dying + becoming disabled impacts the job market. Historically big drops in available labor lead to improved labor negotiation (e.g. working conditions, wages). The "great resignation" is only one facet.

My brother resigned from his job and got another one in 6 months and doubled his income.

Non-cookiewalled: https://text.npr.org/1075115539

(Wow, it’s like free karma to post these.)

I think too its a result of 30 years where employers have had the upper hand in the job market (except perhaps 1999, 2008). Wages have stagnated during these decades, it seems finally maybe wages can catch up.

I recently found a job I would never have got before the COVID.

Of course I was not really competent enough to deal with all that technical debt so I agreed to stop.

Free money for me.

I still have not had recent inflation change my budget my any noticeable amount. I simply do not see if in my every day life, or on my budget spreadsheet. I have to wonder how much of this is media obsession and how much is truly impacting household budgets.

Shouldn't this be a part of a healthy functioning economy?

Shouldn't labor be free to move where demand is? Demand represented by fairer compensation.

I have a hard time believing these people are permanently quitting work. Rather think of it from the point of a business trying to attract new customers.

I can see the inflation affecting me in my purchases and it's not breaking me. Restaurants are charging more and it's making me re-evaluate how important dining out is if it means trapping people in a low wage job they hate.

Do I really wish for someone not to move up the ladder into a better position just so I can choose from some 50 restaurants in my area? Would my life still not support the indulgence of being able to eat out with say 25 restaurants instead of 50? And with a heftier bill but less frequently going out to eat?

I think America is finally exercising some of the benefits of capitalism for the lower class and not just for the elite.

I would argue that there is actually a lot more recession and unemployment happening, and that the numbers provided are not an accurate representation of what is actually happening due to market manipulation and the government and fed artificially pumping the markets... hence the inflation and market instability.

Anecdotally I know several people who retired in the last couple of years. One who had been working past their planned retirement date but had been coasting on inertia and a few who moved their timeline up to retire a little early. (Though some of them still seem to do part-time consulting.) Apparently there are also fewer immigrant workers due to immigration changes during the Trump administration and the pandemic.[1]

It’s not surprising that a shrinking labor force (relative to demand) causes ripple effects. As good positions open up it triggers a musical chairs cascade as everyone else trades up for better jobs. When the music stops it seems pretty obvious that the lowest-paid and/or worst jobs are the ones that will be empty.

[1] https://www.npr.org/2021/12/22/1063104262/immigrant-workers-...

I am reading Davos Man, and all of this is how it's "supposed" to work.

"Yet, despite all the quitting and renegotiating, the real wage for the average American worker — meaning the true value of their paycheck after taking into account inflation — fell by 2.4% in 2021."

All while the world's elites have doubled or tripled their fortunes. Great Robbery would be a more apt name than Great Resignation.

Beware simple narratives. They almost always lie.

> spectacles like the immense popularity of the "Anti-Work" thread on Reddit — have gone as far as to suggest this record-breaking trend is a movement of young, able-bodied Americans rejecting work altogether.

I don't think this is the point of "anti work". The point is (to me) that people should be treated equitably at work and that work shouldn't be the center of our lives

It feels fundamentally wrong that my employer cares at all about where I live when determining my 100% remote salary.

Can anyone offer me rational arguments for why they shouldn’t just pay people based on what they offer the job rather than where they choose to live?

Because it makes me salty to be paid half of what a colleague does because I’m in rural Canada and not San Francisco.

I would like to renegotiate reality.

The Great Whining is another way I’ve seen it described

Business owners will continue to be oblivious to this and hope it blows over even as their expenses increase due to the sheer amount of employees who will find better opportunities elsewhere.

The “great resignation” was always suspect.

Think about it - who would take care of all those people in the western world. I could see it happening in Asian cultures, but in the west? Nah. It’s not in us.

I mean seriously, did we ever check ourselves to think that people would just stay home?

Sure a certain percentage will — and that’s actually a good thing, especially families where both mom and dad worked. Since the cost of child care the and the benefit of caring for your own child is so great.

But with most government subsidies ending, I see a lot of parents getting pretty antsy with grown kids at home.

Let’s get real, people are going to have to get off their tukuses that they have been sitting on over the last few years and head back to some kind of work.

It’s good if they choose something more satisfying, but most people will not have that luxury and the world does not owe us anything.

So back to work you lazy bums!!