When did it start?
 

Did a minimum wage job become a career path? I started my working career at $.50 an hour at a gas station pumping gas never occurred to me that I want to do that for the rest of my life and it gave me the desire to seek a better job.

And that is part of the problem around here. For every person who tips 15-20% there are two who tip 5-10%. This is why anyone who can prefers to work outside The Villages.

Seems you lose benefits after 12 weeks and you MUST be actively looking for work. Florida Unemployment Benefits | Reemployment Assistance

Anyone other than a slough seeks personal achievement through hard work and the drive to attain goals. The government creates sloughs.

Handing out more stimulus $ was needed. The problem was congress took so long to execute that by the time the checks were mailed, the businesses reopened and needed the workers. The smarter method would have cut the political BS and sent smaller checks out early last year and more often to help people maintain bills while still being laid off. Then when business was allowed to reopen, cut off the unemployment & if the workers could be recalled to their jobs. Instead our government had to send $$ to everyone across the board (save those who made enough to be taxed to pay for the checks) and incentivize staying at home to collect more.

They deserve it? Why? I, like many, started out at minimum wage and worked my way up with an education to a comfortable salary and better paying job. This came with benefits and a well EARNED pension. No one “deserves” anything. Get out there and break your a## and earn it.

Very accurate. If mommy and daddy would stop letting the kiddies live in their homes rent free and sent them out into the world, we would have a generation with more ethics and pride in themselves. Theyre raised to believe they are special and entitled to take the easy way in everything. Scarey to say but they will be passing this attitude to their own offspring, if they even support them. Minimum wage is just that. Minimum. Its a starter not a life long career.

Painting the present employment environment with a broad brush may be unfair, as jobs reopen many employees cannot return to work due to issues related to child care, medical care, job locations, limited work hours, and changes in the job requirements. Before the lost of their jobs many employees paid payroll taxes weekly which funded the social programs that are assisting them. Businesses are receiving stimulus money and loans that are being forgiving, why not also support the individuals. This is a complex problem in our society but one that WE can solve together.

Yip keep giving free money and people will never work!!

Some of the comments are laughable and others political. The real reason is you have a supply and demand labor problem in The Villages. This area has grown so fast that the demand for jobs is much larger than the supply of people available for work. The shortage of labor has been predicted for several years and places like Central Florida and especially The Villages are among some of the first to see this problem but won’t be the last. We complain about raising the minimum wage to $15 a hour over a five year period as we sit on our lanai in our $$$$$$ houses and wonder if we might have to cook our own steak instead of going to a nearby steakhouse. Isn’t this a great country or what...

Governments Handouts
 

" If any man thinks he will be happy and prosperous by letting the government support him, better take a closer look at the American Indian". Henry Ford

Correct. The MINIMUM wage is $8.64. I dare say it would be a challenge to find a job that pays the minimum, though I'm sure they are out there. I fear more people will be out of work once Florida reaches the $15 mark, especially those who really need a job but may be considered undesirable. The law of unintended consequences...

Possibly by collecting enhanced unemployment, they have enough money to actually live and pay rent, food, gas, etc. If they made enough money at the Outback, they would probably be working. Most people want to work, regardless of what some people say.

Ruby Tuesday's at Spanish at Spanish Springs is way understaffed. We have waited an hour or more to get seated and then 20 minutes to get waited on. They have 1 ck and few waitresses. They can't get help, because workers would rather stay home and collect unemployment rather than work. They should not pay people for doing nothing when there are jobs available.

Servers make their money on tips, not the hourly wage paid by the restaurant. Good server receives good tips, poor server gets poor tips. Our granddaughter worked at a Waffle House restaurant while in college. She worked the breakfast shift and would routinely make $125 to $150 in tips daily, that's pretty good money. About 18 years ago a friend's son worked at an Outback and he would make $175 in tips working the evening meal hours.
There are a lot of people who are quite content staying at home and not work while drawing unenhanced unemployment benefits.