OPINION:
At the end of last week, the November jobs report was released, with news the economy regained 245,000 jobs, and the unemployment rate dropped from 6.9% to 6.7%. This would seem like good news except economists had widely anticipated a much higher gain, and worry that the tick-down in unemployment can be attributed to people simply dropping out of the labor market.
What comes as a surprise for think-tank policy analysts and Wall Street has been well-known for months and months by the average American. Because of the intense COVID-19 shut-downs, not only have their jobs gone away, they have gone away for good. Main Street has been crying out in pain for some time, but Washington and a few private-sector retail giants engorged from swallowing market share from closed Mom and Pop stores, remain predictably deaf.
The so-called solutions and false optimism about the future of America’s labor force are lamentable and generate too much hollow fuss. If only, some economists remark, another stimulus bill could be had. Or, others say, just hold on tight until a vaccine arrives, then things will return to normal. One famous platitude we’ve been bombarded with is “Build Back Better.” But it remains to be seen what, exactly, will be left to build back when this is all over.
The erosion of America’s labor force, by way of jobs exported overseas or obsolesced by technology, is decades and decades in the making. All the coronavirus has done is accelerate the underlying phenomena. It has also, in a rather useful manner, shown which politicians are willing to fight for average Americans and which are pleased to use the moment to advantage mega corporations.
This is all to say, that economists and statesmen worthy of the designation now have an opportunity to seize. With things having gone so horribly wrong, now is the time to present the alternatives in a forceful way. There are countless Americans — much more than 71 million — receptive to the message. Figure out ways to reach these people, to mobilize their frustrations, to do something of consequence.
Leave these voices wailing in the wilderness and what will result is the creation of a permanent underclass, a kind of serfdom that the managerial class will dress up in a progressive aesthetic to make it more palatable, but serfdom it will be. Because it has not yet happened in America does not mean it won’t, and economic trends sure are pointing in this direction.
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