Analysts and commentators talk about todayâs âprecariate.â The term plays on the Marxist notion of the proletariat, recasting it to describe gig workers, college grads whose income is swallowed by student loan debt, and wage-earners who canât stay ahead of heath costs, childcare costs, car repair bills, and credit card debt.
In March as Ohio began to shut down, Emilyâa thirtysomething mom who asked that I not use her real nameâworried about her family, her neighbors, and especially the elderly. She posted on her townâs Facebook page offering to grocery shop for those unable to go to the store, or to share a meal with anyone who might be hungry, saying that sheâd feed them whatever she could out of her own kitchen.
This seems like a strange headline given that the economy has recently shed almost 40 million jobs. But at some point with the development of a vaccine or an effective treatment, the economy will come back to normal.
Before anyone had heard the term âCOVID-19,â working America was already in a crisis.
The COVID-19 panic has drawn long-overdue attention to the economic and health and financial challenges facing many âessential workersâ including nurses and health aides, nursing home aides, slaughterhouse workers, truckers, grocery store clerks and other retail workers, warehouse workers, and others upon whom the daily functioning of our continental society depends.
Oren Cass discusses his book, The Once and Future Worker: AÂ Vision for the Renewal of Work in America
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