Americans discover something capitalists aren’t going to like
Talk to enough people in Greenwich and you’ll come away fascinated by the countless COVIDrelated opinions and predictions coming from no end of Facebook-certified medical professionals. Never before have so many people had so many opinions on something they know nearly nothing about. Kudos must go to our first selectman, whose position since the pandemic began has pretty much been, “Please, just listen to the experts and let’s do what they say.” Because in a town teeming with folks who believe they’re the smartest guy in the room, it has to be tempting to just take the podium one day and say, “OK, idiots, go ahead and drink bleach or shoot up with animal dewormer. Just stop coming to town meetings.”
It doesn’t help that numerous Greenwichites still get their misinformation from Fox News and wish they had a neo-Trump governor like Ron DeSantis to confirm their pre-determined biases. Biases created and nurtured by a right wing outrage machine designed to shield fact-resistant citizens from the discomfort of actually being wrong. Like when Greenwich’s Biff Beebonnet starts pontifidrinking at the country club about vaccine mind control and wanting to “do his own research,” he sounds just as stupid as when Dipstick Magoo says the same thing in Florida. Magoo has Gov. DeathSantis to back him up however while Biff has, well, he has money and in Greenwich if you have money you must be smart, so there’s that.
But if Greenwichites have a constellation of opinions regarding COVID the disease, there’s one firm belief concerning COVID as economic disrupter which many Greenwichites take as gospel: that giving the unemployed an additional $300 a week in temporary enhanced benefits is socialism that’s strangling job growth, keeping unemployment high, and killing real American small businesses.
Yes, it’s open season once again on blaming people at the bottom of the economic system for the sins of the system. And all those moralizers who remember the good ’ol days of railing against imaginary welfare queens and Obama phones have rediscovered their go-to boogeymen. Of course the Dairy Queen had to close ... increased unemployment benefits for “those people” creates a massive disincentive to work.
Nice hypothesis you have there. Would be a shame if someone were to test it.
Because the facts don’t support the assertion, and what we’re seeing right now is that people of all ages and backgrounds have discovered that the 9 to 5 grind is for suckers. And while we’re at it, they’ve also realized the gig economy is for suckers, too. People want to love their job, but if COVID has proven one thing about working in America, it’s that the days when your job might’ve loved you back are long gone.
The current conservative narrative says the unemployed are being coddled, but the reality is that people do go back to work ... once companies start treating them better. Wall Street firms, notorious for working their first and second years to exhaustion, are instituting more emotional wellness opportunities, professional development and family friendly hours. Restaurants and hotels are making national headlines for being understaffed, but as soon as ownership starts offering wage increases and/or better working conditions, miraculously those jobs get filled.
This summer, 26 states cut or shrunk those enhanced unemployment benefits and effectively told their workforce to get off the couch and back to work, and guess what? Job growth in those states was similar to, sometimes even less than those states that retained the benefits. Why?
Because it’s not about handouts, and it never was. It’s the realization for millions of Americans that they hated their old job. The $300 was designed to keep local economies afloat during unprecedented times and you know what? It worked. But now companies want people struggling with day care, fed up with commuting, still scared for their health, to just go back to working for the man as if everything was all sunshine and kittens again. Well surprise, Americans discovered something huge during this pandemic and the capitalists aren’t going to like it. They discovered that work/life balance really means something, and that companies are going to have to pay real living wages, especially if you want people to work your unpleasant job.