How Are All These Unemployed People Paying Their Bills?

Jessica Wildfire’s article got me wondering about this. Here in the midwest, 99% of fast food, restaurants, stores are hiring. There has been a mass exodus of retail workers.

I have one question. How are they paying their bills? I know in my family we would lose our home if my husband and I didn’t work every day. I am not understanding if they have a. moved in with parents b. work for Doordash, etc. c. inherited money.

The government has stopped the pandemic financial help and from what I’ve read, that money would have run out a long time ago, based on average rents, sky-high gas and grocery prices and basic living expenses.

And for the record, my family is NOT part of the rich elite, just average Americans who worked all those crap jobs years ago in our 20's.

I am part of Gen X and we, like boomers, had to work for our living. I grew up in a blue-collar family, where my dad went to work every day at General Electric. He was not able to just quit and decide his job wasn’t good enough for him. He worked there for over 40 years until retiring in the 90's.

He bought generic, reused plastic containers, hardly ever got takeout, did all the home repair work around the house and was very frugal until he was diagnosed with Alzheimer’s. He was my example of working hard, along with my grandparents who ran a farm.

They collectively were able to retire because of years and years of hard work. Neither of my parents were college grads, so when I went to college, I had to take out loans, some of which I am still paying off. I had to intern, work in a candy store, work at McDonald’s, work-study, etc. to get anywhere in life.

For the past 20 years, I have been a blogger and freelance writer. I was able to carve out a career but I had to start somewhere. I did not start at the top, I started at the bottom.

My son is now almost 20 and he is also starting at the bottom. While he is in college, he has worked as a dishwasher in a restaurant, worked at McDonald’s and as a tutor. While he started out with more than I and my husband did, we still insist he work and value hard work and making money.