Ezra Klein's column in the NYT this morning is a searing indictment of poverty in the US today and our inability to grapple with the moral implications of deliberate policy making which keeps 20% or more of the population immiserated.
Klein points out the huge uproar following business owners complaining they cannot fill low paying, miserable jobs at starvation wages because many who might ordinarily take such jobs out of desperation are not doing so because the social safety net measures passed by the Biden administration have allowed the impoverished to demand higher wages and better working conditions as conditions to taking the jobs being offered. Americans it seems love cheap Uber rides and inexpensive restaurant meals so much their is a public outcry against those who would deny them. If there is anything which would unite the middle class and the super rich it is the demand for cheap goods and services.
Most of us don't think about the people who flip burgers or change sheets at the local motels, unless no one is willing to do those jobs for starvation wages. Perhaps it is time to spare a moment to wonder how much we are responsible for the plight of those who labor so we might be spared the increase in the price of goods and services a more equitable policy might require.
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