We are still in the first wave and now on the second spike. From Katrina to Sandy to Maria. From the fires of California to the floods of Baton Rouge and Houston. To the tornadoes that ravage the Midwest. To the financial crises that rocked our economy with the Dotcom bust and the housing market implosion.
The one thing we learn over and over again is how large the holes in our safety net are. Holes so big that people fall through. Holes so big that small businesses fall through. Holes so big that the only citizens we manage to consistently save are multibillion-dollar multinational corporations and banks who are often only in trouble due to their own quasilegal antics.
Sure, this pandemic is different. Yet, still, most of the stimulus is going to multinational, multibillion dollar corporations who have spent the last few decades avoiding paying taxes, using their hordes of cash to buy back their own stock, bequeathing their executives with obscene levels of compensation from benefits to salary, while fighting tooth and nail against any legislation that would force them to expand that largesse to their workers.
Instead they spend hundreds of millions of dollars on lobbyists to ensure that minimum wage stays at or below poverty level. They lobby against things like paid parental leave, paid sick leave, and paid vacation time all of which are seen as basic needs in every other economically developed country. All while depending on the government to subsidize the, their, poverty-stricken workers whom they take such pains to vilify.
The minimum wage earners. The contractors to whom companies feel no obligation. The delivery people who ensure that you don’t need to leave your house. The cashiers who ensure that when you do you are able to get gas and buy things from the store. The warehouse workers who ensure that the shelves are not bare. So many more. The essential workers.
When this is over, and one way or another it will be over eventually, are we going to forget about them? Like we have every single time in the past? Or are we going to step up and realize they are us?