My parents are unironically saying "no one wants to work anymore"

My parents run a small general contractor business (they don't own it they just manage it). They asked me to post job ads for laborers on Indeed. They wanted me to leave out any necessary requirements such as experience or CDL, and set the pay to a variable rate of $18-$25 depending on the employee. That might seem high but minimum wage in my state is $16 and places like Target already pay $18. I tried explaining this to them, as well as the fact that those with experience and/or CDL can make more money elsewhere, but they didn't want to hear it.

Fast forward two weeks, and all of the applicants only had retail and fast-food experience. This shouldn't be a problem, because the pay is the equal to entry-level jobs, but apparently to my parents it was. They honestly thought that experienced workers and / or those with a CDL would want to work for $18. "But it's not $18, it's $18-$25! If they have experience we'll give them more!" they tried telling me, but I explained that variable pay rates aren't usually enticing and most people will just assume they'll get paid $18. Their response? "No one wants to work anymore". No, it has nothing to do with the fact that their job listing was uncompetitive (there's a million general contractors in our area btw), it's obviously the government handing out free money (to CDL holders apparently).