Economic Privilege
Why people can't leave their jobs
I’ve had many jobs I didn’t like. Some I hated. Some made me ill, literally. I’ve held jobs where I’ve been harassed, passed over for earned promotions, treated badly.
Eventually I left all those jobs, but not right away. Because I was a single mother with two young children and the only breadwinner. I wasn’t a shared custody single mom, with a spouse across town who took the kids regularly. My children’s father lived in Europe and the $832 a month he sent for child support didn’t even cover day care costs. The people in my family who would have helped me didn’t have extra to spare, and those who could have helped, didn’t share.
I bring this up now because Jacinda Ardern, the Prime Minister of New Zealand, resigned this week. She said she “no longer had enough in the tank” to do the job.
A slew of social posts and opinion pieces followed to congratulate her for understanding that she was burnt out and leaving her position. It was seen as a bold step for womankind to be able to admit to burn out.
Yes, all people should have the privilege to be able to leave their jobs when they are exhausted or burnt out. But for any of us who are breadwinners, that’s not always an option.
‘Why doesn’t she just leave?’ is the subtext for so many conversations about women in the work world. Whether it is a woman being abused or assaulted at work, not being paid equitably, being subject to racism, sexism, ageism or just exhausted the question seems to lurk – why doesn’t she just leave?
She doesn’t leave because her job is the only way she can have affordable health insurance for her and her family, which might include kids with special medical or developmental issues.
I’m a very healthy 60-year-old with a third tier plan I buy through the exchange, and my insurance premiums will cost me almost $12,000 this year. My deductible is $5000. That’s what it’s like to be self-employed in the United States.
She doesn’t leave because she might not have much in savings. I think every American should have to wait tables and everyone should have to live paycheck to paycheck for a year.
I did it for more than just a year. My kids and I lived way out of town because that was the only rental I could afford. I drove an old VW Beetle I bought for a couple hundred bucks from my Uncle Joe. It had a hole in the floorboard in front of the passenger seat and I could see the pavement while I drove. The kids sat in the back. It was really cold in the winter.
We drove up to our little A frame cabin one day and there was a sticker on the door that said my power was going to be shut off because I hadn’t paid my bill. I lied to the kids about what it said, since they weren’t very good readers yet. I managed to pay the bill and keep the power on, but just by juggling other bills. I split wood to heat the house whenever I could. A friend of mine who is a member of a local tribe and a hunter brought me elk and venison. That was the only meat we ate that winter. She knew I was broke, although I didn’t tell her. Maybe the car with the hole in the floor was a clue.
I was working full time. I have a college degree. I didn’t have anything in savings. I didn’t have family I could turn to. It happens. So maybe let’s back off the subtext that women – and men – should be leaving any job if they are burnt out, or being treated badly.
The systemic issue that isn’t addressed in these conversations is that in a country with a broken health care system and for-profit insurance companies who are making money while preventing us from accessing the healthcare we have a human right to, many of us are chained to our jobs because we need insurance.
If we had a single payer system, many of the people with bad jobs would leave and get another job. Or take time off to rest and refill their tank. But they can’t. Which is not their fault, but the fault of a government, lobbyists and an electorate who preserve the status quo that does not serve most of us.
The second reason I thought about this was the rash of layoffs in tech this month. Most of us can understand this experience, and have appropriate sympathy for the people going through it. I like the posts on LinkedIn from people reaching out to those who have been laid off to try to help them connect with new opportunities.
I was talking to a friend who was recently laid off, and he said they only gave him health insurance through the end of the January. He spoke with some envy of friends who got laid off from Google who got six months of health insurance.
And if your response to that is that COBRA is available, I’d suggest that you check your economic privilege and find out how much it costs to continue your work insurance by paying for all of it yourself.
What can you do? Of course, take political action and vote for anyone who has good ideas to reform health care and the rapacious health insurance industry.
If you are a leader, and you are in the unfortunate position of having to do layoffs, give the people who work for you as much insurance coverage as you can afford. Treat every employee who loses their job as if she is a single mother with a child with significant health needs. And your sister.
Don’t talk about quiet quitting or complain that younger workers aren’t as committed or are entitled. Why should anyone devote themselves to a job that can, in a moment, make them and tens of thousands of others unemployed and without health insurance? Helpful LinkedIn posts are not a social safety net.
One of the reasons I am so passionate about helping bosses be better is that business leaders have such tremendous power over the people that work for them. The decision to do layoffs or not, to give six months of health insurance coverage or one – these can be literally life changing decisions for the people that work for you.
If you’re the one making those kinds of decisions, please be mindful of your economic privilege and make no assumptions about where it will or will not do damage. Find out how much insurance costs on the exchange. Find out how much a parent pays for the drugs and equipment for a child with Type One diabetes. Imagine it’s you living from paycheck to paycheck. And then act accordingly.