COVID-19 has impacted our economy in many ways, but the aspect of our world that has been disturbed the most is the labor force. It is well known that the unemployment rate went up with Covid as people weren’t able to work throughout lockdown, and even once quarantine came to an end many people struggled to overcome the realization of the inefficiency of the minimum wage. Nonetheless, unemployment went from 8.4% in August of 2020 to 5.2% in August of 2021.

Many companies in Lakewood alone are desperately trying to find more workers, and the big-corporation minimum-wage jobs seem to be having the most trouble finding workers because the economic disparity many found themselves in during Covid helped a lot of the workforce realize the minimum wage was not a liveable wage. With yet another drop in the unemployment rate from 5.2% to 5.8%, companies still struggle to find work with over 194,000 unclaimed job postings from September in Northeast Ohio. Many businesses, small and large, are unable to fill enough positions to maintain regular hours, some locations are even shutting down completely due to their lack of labor.

However, the notion that Americans don’t want to work is completely and utterly false; the reality is that independent and self-funded Americans no longer want to settle for a minimum wage job. Our capitalist fueled economy is beginning to experience signs of rebellion, workers no longer want to waste time with a poorly paying job, and the corportions that refuse to pay a liveable wage will experience struggle and perhaps even shut down.