In his AXIOS newsletter, Felix Salmon suggests that “the American Dream has lost its hustle” since the start of the pandemic and workers are reprioritizing what’s most important to them:
“News organizations can’t quit writing about ‘quiet quitting’ and its close cousins — bare minimum Mondays, lazy girl jobs, loud quitting, grumpy staying, hush tripping, ‘act your wage,’ etc., etc.
Why it matters: The popularity of such stories, which largely describe behavior as old as time, reveals something important about how the American Dream has changed significantly in the wake of the pandemic.
Young Americans mistrusted capitalism — they were convinced that employers were exploiting their labor — even before the pandemic.
Now, with a strong labor market at their backs, they are increasingly proud of, and being lauded for, turning the tables on their employers — the exploited have become the exploiters.”
