@libertybele Not really a surprise after thinking about it for a minutue. I live in a rural area and the nearest Hardees and McDonalds are 12 miles away. The lobby in both have been closed all weekend,with signs on the doors saying it was due to a worker shortage.
Think about this one for a minute. In a rural area with no public transportaton and the nearest small city over 25 miles away,fast food restuarants in one of the few areas close to housing developements can't even hire high school kids to work part time for 12 bucks an hour.
I have a friend with a commercial garage,and he used to have two employees helping him that mostly did stuff like tire work,taking stuff apart,cleaning up,etc,etc,etc. They were mechanic trainees trying to learn a trade.
For over a year now he has been trying to run it by himself,working 12+ hours a day 7 days a week,and still falling behind.
He has put ads in papers trying to hire mechanics or mechanic trainees,and he tells me he gets a lot of calls from people who tell him "Sorry,I can't work for so little money. I am getting paid more now to not work,and I'd lose that."
He is eventually going to have to shut his doors because it is flat out too much for one man to do by himself,and if he were to go to appointments and only bringing in the work he could handle himself,he would go out of business because it just wouldn't be enough money to handle the overhead and allow him some profit. Maybe if he were 30 and healthy,but he is close to 60 and still recovering from cancer.
A farmer friend has the same problem. There used to be a group of slackers who would rather continue to live with mama than work a steady job that he could hire when it was time to plant or harvest for cash money as day laborers. They too are getting the "stay home money".
This is happening to one degree or another all over the country. Sooner or later the bill is going to come due,and there will be nobody with the means to pay it.
It's hard to hire people to work when the government pays them more to stay home.