>It will also force employees to look for higher-paying jobs
...implying they weren't already doing so? I'm not sure about you, but I don't think applebees is the type of place you stick around for "the good work culture" or whatever.
Shouldn't it be easier to look for new jobs if you have a financial buffer? If anything being more pinched => more time being stressed out and/or more time at work (trying to rack up OT) => less time/energy to spend looking for new jobs.
For one reason or another (all of which we must be empathetic to) many people resist change even to their own benefit. I think all humans are guilty of this in some form or another to varying degrees. For some people, change in job / career is met with severe resistance. It takes a catastrophe for people to get going into finding something better.
* Satisfaction: This is a personal reason of mine. I make a solid technology wage that probably rests somewhere in the middle or maybe low-middle. I could definitely find myself a 15-20% bump if I tried, but I am so damn happy with my employer that I really don't feel the need. As long as my current wage tracks inflation, I honestly would be ok with not making any more money.
People working at these places are highly dependent on transportation and hours.
When I worked retail, we were in sales and were top of the food chain. The restaurant people were a notch over regular mall workers in pay, but had to deal with different hours. Many people work multiple jobs… one line cook I remember did prep work starting at 6am at one place, painted, and closed the mall restaurant. He couldnt flip jobs easily due to bus schedules.
People don't realize how expensive it is to be working poor if they've never been working poor. It's a difficult trap to escape. For some it may be their own doing getting there, for others it may be environmental factors that lead them there or some combination of the two.
The fact is, it's difficult to find resources to escape and you're trapped in a difficult space where gathering momentum to make even small transitions could take years of time while barely staying afloat. This is the life of the precariat class.
...implying they weren't already doing so? I'm not sure about you, but I don't think applebees is the type of place you stick around for "the good work culture" or whatever.