Thank you for supporting our journalism. This article is available exclusively for our subscribers, who help fund our work at the Chicago Tribune.Starbucks workers organizing unions in recent years have complained of understaffing and other job-quality issues, which similarly arose in the Federal Reserve's recent focus groups with low-income and moderate-income workers. In this photo, Starbucks Workers Union members picket at a store on South Street and 22nd Street in Philadelphia on Nov.
From May to September 2022, researchers interviewed 168 noncollege graduate U.S. workers and job seekers aged 20-55.Participants shared personal stories about the challenges of their work or barriers to working — including high costs or unavailability of child care, lack of transportation, and frustrations with finding work despite applying to dozens of jobs.
Caregiving obligations and health concerns factor into that thinking, the report said, as well as transportation. Some, who rely on public transportation, said many jobs were unavailable to them because nearby transit options were limited, unreliable or nonexistent, and that was made worse by the pandemic.
Researchers said many focus group participants were trying to reenter the job market or change jobs but had applied to dozens of openings without getting any response. Miller noted that the focus groups were held in mid-2022, when the job market was at its hottest and highly paid workers were leveraging new job offers to get big raises.