Originally posted by Lokrian
You specifically said "unless they are paid more than can be afforded", and not, "will not do physical labor at all." If you had said the latter, I would have called you on it too because I happen to have been to Israel as well. It's not so terribly different from the U.S. that there are no people willing to do manual labor. It is actually just as you described. People will not do manual labor for less than what it takes to live a decent life.
The problem with your statement, and perhaps I didn't point it out in my previous posts, is that construction workers earn a pretty damn good salary (much much much more than minimum wage) and if one could possibly work in this field for a very long time (which is almost impossible because it completely wears your body up) you could live a very nice life with every luxury you want or need.

And that's where being spoiled comes into... people aren't willing to do hard, physical jobs nowadays, even when they have great income and I'm going to join Ari here, if you want to work hard, you will eventually make more money. The problem nowadays is that almost everyone is looking for easy solutions and easy ways to make money (lotteries are the best example) but it rarely ever works this way and eventually, it is up to the person to decide what he wants in his life.