#covid fallout

Hmm, okay, so I keep seeing discourse about “the labor shortage”, and there’s a few huge very simple explanations aside from unemployment and low pay.

First, and at least President Biden and Governor Beshear of Kentucky addressed this one: CHILDCARE. Daycares have closed, have limited capacity, and I’m sure need workers like everyone else. Low-paying retail jobs don’t exactly letcha bring your kids with you, nor pay a whole hell of a lot for professional child care.

Who else provides childcare for parents? GRANDPARENTS. You know, the demographic that suffered the highest death rate from the pandemic. Along with losing a precious member of their family, families have also lost in them the person who cared for their child while they worked.

Relatedly, another reason for the labor shortage?

The nearly 600,000 DEAD. Nearly six hundred thousand people in the United States literally do not exist anymore. They’re gone. That NO ONE has connected the dots and realized this would *also* impact the number of people available to work is just…astounding.

This is the thing that really gets me. We have ALL watched video after video in the past year of out-of-control assholes screaming, assaulting, spitting, coughing, and even so extremely, *murdering* low wage essential workers in retail and the service industry. Absolutely fucking NO ONE should be treated the way retail workers have been treated this past year. Every sanctimonious blowhard in politics and the media whinging that people need to take these jobs and get off unemployment would refuse to be treated the way retail workers are treated.

The SAME type of people who attacked the Capitol on January 6th have been terrorizing low wage retail workers for over 365 motherfucking days now.

It is absolutely unsurprising, and completely understandable, that many people have decided, FORGET THAT.