A class of Americans has become lazy and entitled. Too used to a government that caters to their every whim, they're facing a difficult situation not with grit and determination, but by throwing tantrums and demanding special treatment.

That's right, I'm talking about business owners. Complaints about a labor shortage abound, but it's time these coddled snowflakes learned some discipline.

The plain fact is we've had an employer's economy for a decade. After the Great Recession, unemployment was chronically high — only touching something like full employment in 2019, 11 years after the crash. Bosses got used to having the pick of the litter.

The pandemic has been a nightmare for the workers who keep America's rattletrap society staggering forward — the cashiers, cooks, nurses, truck drivers, meatpackers, child care workers, fruit pickers, and so on. It was one thing for overeducated millennials to scrape by in dead-end, low-wage jobs, like bagging groceries or getting screamed at while waiting tables. It was quite another to do so while at risk of gruesome death.

Simultaneously, the pandemic rescue packages have created a huge spending boom. Americans are buying stuff at a record pace, creating all sorts of snarls in shipping and production (in part because there was little excess capacity, again thanks to weak demand during the feeble post-2008 recovery). Higher-productivity firms are scrambling to expand, offering jobs with much better pay and benefits. This too puts a strain on employers whose business model is premised on exploited, low-wage labor.

Together, all this has given the American working class its greatest leverage in more than 20 years. People are quitting over pay, benefits, and working conditions. Thousands of workers are on strike at hospitals, tractor factories, and elsewhere. Thousands more may strike soon. Job applicants have turned the tables on employers, treating them with the same apathy they received after 2008 — ghosting hiring managers on outreach, interviews, or even job offers.

Employers don't like it, but they're finally recognizing something has changed.