I think the sentiment you are responding to is the erosion of good jobs. There are tons of new jobs, but for those impacted by this stuff very few of them are good jobs that pay a middle-class income (I know, I don't have a cite, but I'm explaining a sentiment, not a fact - so iono I don't got it).
A contractor in a town where the jobs dried up might work at Lowe's now for example, where they would be kept under 20 hours a week so Lowe's doesn't have to pay benefits, and they could look forward to living in a van off of social security when they retire (source - this is my brother in law at 55 y/o - he has no idea how computers work, and desperately just wants to go back to laying tile like he did for most of his life - lost work - got a job at Lowes a few years back - just laid off actually, due to the virus - he's 100% screwed). There are a lot of these folks floating around, and what has happened to them is absolutely tragic.
Ideally he should re-train in something, but what often winds up happening is that they get sucked into for-profit colleges that encourage them to take out predatory high-interest loans for training that lead to job markets that are either oversaturated, or misrepresented. Then come the payday loans, then come the repossessions.
Ideally those people would just buy a bunch of NoStarch books and become fullstack developers or something, but that's not how people work, unfortunately and we just haven't figured out a good mechanism to help keep those folks on their feet.
The person you're responding to is waaaaaay too angry, and I don't believe you deserve to be on the receiving-end of that, but they may be going through some really rough stuff right now. There's a lot of people who have suddenly found themselves unemployed and homeless and they may very well be in that situation.
A contractor in a town where the jobs dried up might work at Lowe's now for example, where they would be kept under 20 hours a week so Lowe's doesn't have to pay benefits, and they could look forward to living in a van off of social security when they retire (source - this is my brother in law at 55 y/o - he has no idea how computers work, and desperately just wants to go back to laying tile like he did for most of his life - lost work - got a job at Lowes a few years back - just laid off actually, due to the virus - he's 100% screwed). There are a lot of these folks floating around, and what has happened to them is absolutely tragic.
Ideally he should re-train in something, but what often winds up happening is that they get sucked into for-profit colleges that encourage them to take out predatory high-interest loans for training that lead to job markets that are either oversaturated, or misrepresented. Then come the payday loans, then come the repossessions.
Ideally those people would just buy a bunch of NoStarch books and become fullstack developers or something, but that's not how people work, unfortunately and we just haven't figured out a good mechanism to help keep those folks on their feet.
The person you're responding to is waaaaaay too angry, and I don't believe you deserve to be on the receiving-end of that, but they may be going through some really rough stuff right now. There's a lot of people who have suddenly found themselves unemployed and homeless and they may very well be in that situation.