We are living through the economic equivalent of emergency medicine. Right now, we are focused on leaders trying (often ineptly) to triage the immediate consequences of our economic crisis. Most of us are just thinking about staying employed. But there is deeper trouble on the horizon—the future of wages. We need to talk about how we’re going to prevent the paychecks of workers from getting crushed for years even after the pandemic is over.
Tens of millions of working people are newly unemployed. A large portion of the jobs they left will not come back. Hundreds of thousands of businesses will close as a result of the pandemic and its associated lockdown and the failure of our government to extend a proper lifeline. Ideally, the federal government would get workers and employers to the other side of this in one piece with a competent rescue package, but that is almost certainly not going to happen…
Continua a leggere su In These Times
