The Cost of Work

Happy Labor Day

In April, I wrote about how many people in my hometown, and in Arkansas generally, did not support the extra $600 a week unemployment benefit that passed in in the CARES Act in March, to address the pandemic’s economic havoc. They feared that others would “take advantage” of the system, and refuse to return to work. (An edited version was later published in The New York Times.*)

This fight has continued as the pandemic has raged on, uncontrolled, hobbling the economy and keeping unemployment high, especially as Congress debated renewing the enhancement before the August recess. On August 9, someone posted several available jobs to a local, public Facebook group**, and told people how to apply through indeed.com. All paid around $10 or $11 an hour, which is just a little more than the state’s current minimum wage of $9.25, and some were part-time. (I know these commenters, but I’m not going to use their names here. Everything shared here is from someone I know personally, not a bot, although they might have originated from a bot.) Another local pointed out that not a single job paid a living wage, which started an argument. “There was once a generation, during the 1930's depression who would take ANY job out of pride,” said a retiree in the county. Someone else countered that “a single adult living frugality [sic] should have no problem living on these wages.” The original poster also responded: “Something is always better than nothing, and could be just a starter job for someone.”

That’s a viewpoint I hear often in town, that something is better than nothing. But this isn’t true. Someone with more than ten years of experience who was laid off from their $35,000 to $40,000-a-year retail management job, for example, would not want to take a minimum-wage, entry-level job in home health or waiting tables. It’s not a matter of pride; it would be a bad move to do so. Economists will tell you that shoving someone into an ill-fitting job that doesn’t utilize their skills or experience is inefficient. They, their families, and their potential future employers would be better off if they spent more of their time searching for the right job for them, matching their level of experience. It’s better for everyone, including the economy as a whole, if people make the right choices, not choices out of desperation.

Beyond that is a bigger point that has completely disappeared from many policy discussions, and not just during the pandemic. When people go to work they are selling their time and their labor. Hours they spend working are hours spent not doing other things—taking care of children or other members of their family, taking care of their health, sleeping, cooking, loving, worshipping, vacationing, and yes, sometimes being lazy. Humans aren’t only workers producing for a capitalist economy. In one of the more useful policy books to come out in the past few years, Finding Time, Heather Boushey, who is CEO of the Washington Center for Equitable Growth and now advises the Democratic candidate for president, Joe Biden, argues that policy-makers and politicians forget this part of the business cycle too often. “Economists know that people won’t work if the pay is too low or the time demands are impossible to meet… Some people have few options, but we all have a bottom line.” That is especially true now, as the “cost” of spending time at a job has increased to include potential exposure to a dangerous virus, and children are home because schools are closed.

One of our political system’s shortcomings, made especially clear by the Covid-19 disaster, is that too many Americans are paid too little, perhaps especially in many of the industries we’ve deemed essential. This problem is even worse in rural America, where the cost of living is lower than in cities but still isn’t met by the minimum wage, and where just a small handful of employers have enormous power over the labor market. Economists call that a monopsony or oligopsony: and it’s been identified as one of the reasons wages haven’t grown in the past few decades. In my county, the biggest employers are the schools and the hospital, only the latter of which offers salaries that approach the nationwide median income: in the private-, for-profit sector, it’s Wal-Mart by a mile. This is common in many rural counties, and it means low-wage retailers have enormous power to set wages and expectations for what wages should be, even for people who move into managerial positions. There are many smaller employers offering better pay, but their few jobs are very competitive and often specialized. No wonder people feel like they have few options.

Add to that Arkansas’s position as a right-to-work, anti-union state, and many workers don’t feel empowered to protest conditions they feel are wrong. This problem exists nationwide, especially for those with the least education, especially in rural areas, and it’s one of the reasons so many experts urge increasing the minimum wage and breaking up some of the country’s biggest companies. They have too much power to keep wages low for the least educated workers. But why don’t people here protest? Their belief that all work is good no matter the conditions or pay, and all government assistance is bad, is tied to racism, and I suspect many of the mostly white working-class folks here don’t want to be seen as making common cause with Black and Latino workers, who have been hit hardest by the virus and the recession it has spawned. I’ve seen this evinced in the many racist responses to the Black Lives Matter protests as well. The fact that people have time to protest is taken as evidence that they just “don’t want to work,” and are on government assistance. Here’s a meme I saw passed around for a few weeks linking the two ideas:

Of course, under the unemployment system, employees can’t refuse to return to work if their jobs come back, or reasonably similar ones do. So the idea that people were refusing to return to work because UI was too generous was a myth. The lack of support for small businesses is also likely driving owners to reopen their establishments, forcing them to call workers back. Now, more people are clocking in for less than they were receiving in unemployment benefits while the CARES Act bonus was in place. Those who never stopped working supported the UI enhancement the least, because in many cases they were making less than those collecting unemployment. And they are completely silent about the billions handed out to the country’s richest people, including the president’s friends.

Rather than blame the people who keep their wages low, they are encouraged to blame those who lost their jobs instead. It sheds light on why so many Republicans, beholden to their corporate overlords, don’t want people to have extra money; they might get too many ideas about what their time and labor are worth. I hope more people remember that when Congress returns after a holiday dedicated to the American labor force.

What I’m Recommending:

Remember that survey from the second-grade class in Indiana that went viral early in 2017? One of the questions was, “What kind of food do you like?” And the options were soup or pizza. I was in the minority who chose soup. Soup season is year-round for me, but I am aware that soup is even better than normal in autumn, which is rapidly approaching. (Thank goodness!) I am currently eating this vegetarian pasta e fagioli with Rancho Gordo cranberry beans.

A Few Notes:

Thank you to my new subscribers! Paying subscribers are able to comment on posts, and more benefits are coming your way. If you’re interested, hit the button below:

Last week, in an earlier version of this newsletter, I wrote that I “discovered,” chaat masala. Obviously, I did no such thing. This is a writer’s mistake; discovered is good and active verb, and it’s how we often talk about food, but it’s incorrect. I had changed it to “learned about” in an updated version, but for complicated reasons related to having too many browser tabs open, this was not the saved version I sent out in email form. I regret the error.

I also said I was going to be sending out this newsletter on Thursdays, but after trying that for a couple of weeks, it’s clear that the rhythm and timing of my workweek demand that this take up a weekend slot. Expect to see this in your inbox on Sundays.

*It’s interesting to compare these two versions if you want to know more about how the editing process works. Many people who don’t work as writers tend to think that editing simply involves copy-editing; that is, changing words that aren’t well chosen, or correcting grammar. Editors do those things, but what they really do is ask questions inspired by the piece that haven’t been answered, or cut out extraneous and unrelated thoughts, or finely tune a writer’s thinking. The editing process is difficult and frustrating for many who aren’t used to it, but it is always worth it.

**Facebook is a publishing forum, and all of the things I share from it are public, so I’m not invading anyone’s privacy. We have many Facebook groups here, and they serve as a sort of public square, since we don’t have very many other public spaces otherwise. I find people are more honest on it. It is a good window into how people view current events. But also, the memes that people see and share help shape public opinion, and I think Facebook in its current form is antithetical to functioning democracy.

Cute Animal Pic of the Week:

My partner found this old guy running loose on the busy highway here in town this week. He and his coworkers caught him and brought him to safety. The local shelter wouldn’t take him because they said they were full. I don’t know what will happen to him, but he’s at a local sanctuary now. We called him Lion. If I get more newsletter subscribers, I’ll buy a ranch to start a doggy nursing home and send you exclusive pictures. In the meantime, if you want to help people in my hometown spay and neuter their pets, you can donate to the nonprofit I helped start here. (Bonus pic of my dog Banjo if you click.)