Ford CEO Found Young People Didn’t Want to Work There Because $17 Wages Left Them ‘So Stressed’

Turns out, a $17-an-hour paycheck doesn’t go as far as it used to—especially if you’re young, exhausted, and juggling two jobs just to survive.

Ford (NYSE:F) CEO Jim Farley heard this loud and clear from his own factory floors. And instead of shrugging it off or blaming “kids these days,” he made a move that echoed the bold playbook of Henry Ford himself—one that he says America desperately needs more of.

In a June interview at the Aspen Ideas Festival with Walter Isaacson—the renowned biographer best known for his books on Steve Jobs, Leonardo da Vinci, and Elon Musk—Farley peeled back the curtain on what younger workers were really telling him about life on a $17 wage.

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“The older workers who’d been at the company said, ‘None of the young people want to work here. Jim, you pay $17 an hour, and they are so stressed,'” Farley recalled. “They’ve got to work at Amazon for eight hours, then they come over to Ford for seven hours, and then they sleep for three or four hours—and then they go back. And they’re barely getting by.”

Rather than issue a tone-deaf memo or wait for another generation to settle for less, Farley made a decisive, expensive change: he converted every temporary worker into a full-time employee.

“It wasn’t easy to do,” he admitted. “It was expensive. But I think that’s the kind of changes we need to make in our country.”

Farley’s move isn’t just about better paychecks—it’s about reviving an old-school idea that once turned Ford into a powerhouse: when you pay workers well, they can afford the products they help build.

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Quoting the legendary Henry Ford, Farley said, “‘I’m doing this because I want my factory worker to buy my cars. If they make enough money, they’ll buy my own product.'” Then he added, “It’s a self-fulfilling prophecy, in a way.”

In 1914, Henry Ford famously raised factory wages to $5 a day—nearly double the going rate. It wasn’t a random act of generosity. It was a smart bet that higher wages would lead to a more stable, productive workforce and—bonus—more people who could afford to drive off in a Model T. According to Farley, it worked then, and it can work now.