What the Rich Don't Want to Admit About the Poor

[elleng]

by Ezra Klein

'I’m not going to pretend that I know how to interpret the jobs and inflation data of the past few months. My view is that this is still an economy warped by the pandemic, and that the dynamics are so strange and so unstable that it will be some time before we know its true state. But the reaction to the early numbers and anecdotes has revealed something deeper and more constant in our politics.

The American economy runs on poverty, or at least the constant threat of it. Americans like their goods cheap and their services plentiful and the two of them, together, require a sprawling labor force willing to work tough jobs at crummy wages. On the right, the barest glimmer of worker power is treated as a policy emergency, and the whip of poverty, not the lure of higher wages, is the appropriate response.

Reports that low-wage employers were having trouble filling open jobs sent Republican policymakers into a tizzy and led at least 25 Republican governors — and one Democratic governor — to announce plans to cut off expanded unemployment benefits early. Chipotle said that it would increase prices by about 4 percent to cover the cost of higher wages, prompting the National Republican Congressional Committee to issue a blistering response: “Democrats’ socialist stimulus bill caused a labor shortage, and now burrito lovers everywhere are footing the bill.” The Trumpist outlet The Federalist complained, “Restaurants have had to bribe current and prospective workers with fatter paychecks to lure them off their backsides and back to work.”

But it’s not just the right. The financial press, the cable news squawkers and even many on the center-left greet news of labor shortages and price increases with an alarm they rarely bring to the ongoing agonies of poverty or low-wage toil.'>>>

https://www.nytimes.com/2021/06/13/opinion/stimulus-unemployment-republicans-poverty.html?

[Mike Nelson]

1. When will they ever learn...

... we saw the last two Republican Presidents get in office without a majority vote, and drive the US economy off a cliff. Seems, to me, we should go with the majority vote over the Electoral Collage, and stop voting for Republican failures!

[KG]

2. the rich loves them some 'free markets' until....

[raging moderate]

4. The rich are ignorant about poverty.

Last edited Tue Jun 15, 2021, 09:59 AM - Edit history (2)

There are many small costs that they do not understand. When my husband was a caseworker years ago, the budget prescribed for recipients of welfare failed to take into account the inevitable charge for cashing the check. On those low incomes, that doomed the recipients to missing a few meals. I remember my mother's face, if a pair of stockings got a run. We were never on welfare, but her wages as a typist were so low that we had a welfare-like household budget.

I can imagine that going back to work involves some expenditures just to be considered "decent" by the pampered "managerial" class. The right soap, shampoo, hair conditioner, cosmetics, and mouth rinse are all needed to meet their approval. If your hair is not cut and styled by a good barber/beautician, they are likely to decide that you are unkempt, and possibly that your hair is not washed or even brushed. I have heard that they even judge you on how neatly your eyebrows are trimmed (again, much better results will come from a salon, but that costs money).

In fact, these people cannot even accurately judge whether a person's clothing is clean and ironed. When I was student teaching to become a speech/language pathologist, my supervising teacher (married to a business executive) kept harassing me about my so-called "dirty wrinkled" (actually just inexpensive) clothing. I worked and worked to wash and iron that clothing enough to win her approval for it, but to no avail. A wonderful warm-hearted middle-class friend gave me a middle-class (ie expensive) wool suit. As the semester wore on, I wore this suit more and more. I could not afford to get it cleaned or pressed, so I just sponged and ironed it at home, so it actually got dirtier and dirtier. However, my obtuse middle-class supervisor never failed to compliment me on finally having learned proper cleanliness, every time I wore it. Hey, supervisors! I wonder how many of you over-privileged little preppies are making the same mistake about the people you supervise?

And then there are hidden costs in transportation, and child care, and medicines needed for optimal job performance. And let's just say the words "lunch money." They don't have any idea! They are so ignorant and arrogant and callous!

[mitch96]

5. "The rich are ignorant about poverty." As Marie Antoinette said when learning of a bread shortage..

"Let them eat cake"........ Clue less...
m

[raccoon]

8. And regarding appearances...not to mention expenses associated with

Having presentable teeth. Unless you’re extremely lucky and Don’t have many problems with them.

[raging moderate]

9. RIGHT! Teeth MUST look good!

Last edited Tue Jun 15, 2021, 08:51 PM - Edit history (1)

Plus, everyone forgets about TOOTHACHES. I remember my little brother crying himself to sleep with toothaches. And my mother lost most of her teeth in her thirties. Some of them fell out of her mouth gradually, in little chips. Malnutrition was RAMPANT during the Great Depression. Then, in her sixties, she had to figure out how to do home repairs on her dentures to keep them in her mouth. Actually, my brother turned out to be the person who could do a really effective job of home denture repair. Somehow, Mom managed to keep going to work full-time until age 65 and part-time until two months before she died of pancreatic cancer at age 76.

[GoodRaisin]

6. Greed.

Either the wage earners or the consumer, or both, have to always bend. But what of the profit margin of the business, the seemingly immovable part of the equation? The Greed.

[Cicada]

7. Brilliant and important