An influencer in New York took to social media to push back against the narrative that people don’t want to work. He argues in his TikTok video that people aren’t the problem, but a fundamental issue with the cost of living.
Prossoirnoir007 (Noir) posted his argument on TikTok, where it garnered over 200,000 Likes, thousands of comments, and bookmarks. In his video, he shares that he overheard some older folks saying, “Nobody wants to work nowadays.”
Noir immediately calls it out for what it is, and argues that it isn’t a lack of trying, but that “people forget it costs money to go to work.” He then lists just a couple of items off the top of his head that every American has to consider: gas, a car, car insurance and maintenance, plus “soap to clean myself.”
He is clearly frustrated because that’s just for the sake of getting to work and being presentable. You then have to worry about paying your bills while working a job that doesn’t pay enough. Noir uses Mayor Mamdani as an example, saying “people came out the woodwork” when the mayor was paying $30 an hour to shovel snow.
“The reason why people don’t wanna work is because they don’t wanna work to just continue to be broke,” Noir says. More importantly, he argues, the wage has to be enough to cover commuting, too.
How People Reacted to Noir’s TikTok Video
In the comment section of Noir’s TikTok video, people were not at all happy with what Noir overheard and added their voice to the conversation. Many were flabbergasted and felt that the older people were very out of touch with reality. They pointed out the laundry list of costs, from work equipment to childcare. As one TikTok user put it: “Being poor is expensive; being employed is expensive.”
Some people felt there was hidden subtext to what Noir overheard. “They mean: ‘No one wants to be exploited by their employers anymore,’” one viewer wrote. This sparked others to comment in the same thread, with one TikTok user stating they heard the same speech from a dairy farmer offering “$40 a day.” With a regular eight-hour shift, that’s $5 an hour—less than the federal minimum wage in the U.S!
One person hit the nail on the head, starting, “People are tired of working hard and getting nowhere.” A parent commented in the same thread, wishing they could take their children on vacation as a reward for their hard work in school and sports.
The cost of living keeps going up. There’s a lackluster public transportation system, the federal minimum wage is still stuck at $7.25, and stagnant wages. People do want to work; they just want to be paid fairly.
