“We all quit” – why many Americans just stay at home
Many Americans have quit their jobs. Numerous shops had to close as a result
Source: Getty Images / Nathan Griffith
The United States has an exceptionally large labor shortage. One reason is the rapid economic recovery after the Corona crisis. More relevant, however, are the government’s lavish pandemic aid. They leave many Americans in a kind of lethargy.
A.A yellow note was recently stuck to the door of a supermarket in the US state of Nebraska: “We all quit,” it said, “Please excuse the inconvenience.” The cashiers and shelf assemblers were paid too low and overtime was too high . They quit their job and the store had to close temporarily.
Other American businesses have fared similarly in recent months. In Ohio, several Starbucks branches closed, in New York fashion boutiques shortened their opening hours. Because all over the country, employees are giving up their jobs and looking for new, better jobs. In September alone – the last month for which the Department of Labor has data – the figure was 4.4 million. That is the highest value in US history.
Unemployment in America is 3.9 percent and is almost as low as it was before Corona. At the beginning of the pandemic, in spring 2020, the rate was 14.8 percent – a value that was last measured during the Great Depression. The speed at which the US economy collapsed in the Corona crisis was unprecedented.
More than 30 million citizens lost their jobs within a few weeks. It was almost two years before the stock market crash of 1929 led to a similarly high level of unemployment. And after the bankruptcy of the Lehman Brothers bank in September 2008, this figure was never reached. During the financial crisis, the rate rose to ten percent – in October 2009, around a year later.
Now the American economy has largely recovered from the pandemic. In the third quarter of last year, growth was 2.1 percent. The corona minus is balanced. But where does the labor shortage come from? How can it be that millions of citizens can suddenly afford to stay at home?
Helicopter money from Trump and Biden
One reason, according to US economists: Corona aid. President Joe Biden and his predecessor Donald Trump distributed so-called helicopter money. In the past year and a half, Americans received three checks from the state, just like that. Low-income families raised $ 5,000 to $ 10,000. The government also paid the unemployed $ 600 a week at times, in addition to support from local authorities.
So the Americans were able to build up a substantial financial cushion. “Many are now using the reserves to get by without work,” says Michael Acton, an analyst at the real estate investor AEW Capital Management from Boston. “One lesson of all,” says Acton, “is that there are obviously a lot of unattractive jobs in the US that people quit at the first opportunity.”
The mean assets in the accounts of the Low wage earners Thanks to the Corona aid, it more than doubled in spring 2020. With every subsequent government check the value soared again. At the same time, real estate prices rose.
Source: WORLD infographic
At the beginning of the pandemic, a house in the United States cost an average of $ 375,000 – now it’s $ 453,000, according to the St. Louis regional central bank. That corresponds to an increase of more than 20 percent. And then the stock exchanges also boomed. All of this gave the Americans a boon.
But the current situation also has a downside. The lack of labor drives inflation. In November, prices in the USA rose by 6.8 percent compared to the same month last year, as much as they were 40 years ago. The Americans’ financial reserves could soon be used up again.