They promise better pay, but it is always jam tomorrow.
jam tomorrow
idiomPromised benefits that never arrive.
Origin
first recorded 19th c.From Lewis Carroll's Through the Looking-Glass (1871), where Alice is offered “jam to-morrow and jam yesterday — but never jam to-day”. This is a pun on a mnemonic for the usage of jam, iam in Latin (note i/j conflation in Latin spelling), which means “now”, but only in the future or past tense, not in the present (which is instead nunc).
The manager keeps promising a bonus, but it feels like jam tomorrow every single year.
The citizens grew weary of the politician's grand vision for the future, recognizing it as nothing more than jam tomorrow.
- 01
as if there were no tomorrow
To an excessive degree, oftentimes with little to no regard to future consequences; desperately; recklessly or wantonly; frantically; very quickly or very much.
- 02
jam today
The availability of a resource at the present date.
- 03
like there is no tomorrow
Alternative form of as if there were no tomorrow.
- 04
money for jam
Money made very easily.