It seems the disparity gap is getting wider every day. Of course there have always been the haves and the have nots, but as Senators like Joe Manchin (D-WV) push to drastically reduce President Joe Biden’s proposed 3.5T spending bill, tweets like the following stand in stark contrast.
On the one hand, we see Wisconsin’s Senate approving Senate Bill 332 that would extend the hours that teenagers are allowed to work, while still adhering to federal child labor laws. Supporters of the legislation believe this will help labor shortages in small businesses.
Wisconsin AFL-CIO President Stephanie Bloomingdale was swift to condemn the bill, stating, “The Wisconsin State AFL-CIO opposes Senate Bill 332 as it continues the slippery slope of eliminating child labor protections. The reality is that this bill would likely affect few children; however, if this bill affects one child – that is one child too many. For over 150 years, Wisconsin has protected children who work through the passage and enforcement of state laws that ensure children do not work long and late shifts. All of Wisconsin’s 14- and 15-year-old children are owed the same level of protection that our state has provided to teenage workers in the past.”
Also, allowing teenagers to work over longer hours does nothing to address the issues of people not returning to the workforce because of low wages, lack of health care and the like. In August, a record 4.3 million workers left their jobs with food services, healthcare and retail workers leading the charge.
Danny Nelms, president of Work Institute said, “This [pandemic] has been going on for so long, it’s affecting people mentally, physically, All those things are continuing to make people be reflective of their life and career and their jobs. Add to that over 10 million openings, and if I want to go do something different it’s not terribly hard to do.” In addition, workers are increasingly citing burnout as a reason for them leaving the workforce.
Jennifer Moss, the author of a new book entitled The Burnout Epidemic writes, “Burnout is a complex constellation of poor workplace practices and policies, antiquated institutional legacies, roles and personalities at higher risk, and system, societal issues that have been unchanged, plaguing us for too long.” Getting good pay is simply no longer good enough for workers who feel under paid or don’t like their bosses.
We’ve all seen a contributing factor to burnout in videos showing customers abusing often low salaried workers. Be it anti-maskers or “Karen” videos, low-paid workers are being tested like never before and are fed up.
In addition to what often seems like harrowing atmospheres for many adults, the CDC says that younger workers are at increased safety and health risks. Teens often have limited to no workplace experience, typically take jobs in places such as restaurants with workplace hazards such as sharp knives/equipment and slick floors, and can be lacking in appropriate safety training. Additionally, younger teens might not possess the cognitive abilities or physical strength necessary to do their jobs.
In fact, according to the CDC, in 2018 emergency room visits for teens aged 15 to 19 was 2.2 times higher than workers over 25. An even more sobering statistic is the fact that young people and children do, actually, die on the job, with 34 deaths to children under 18 in 2019.
If Wisconsin needs to address labor shortfalls, perhaps it can find better ways than filling the gap with teenagers.
https://twitter.com/AlanRMacLeod/status/1451919195562815488?s=20
On the other hand, with millionaires and billionaires able to capitalize on the pandemic and increase their wealth, they have been met with what can only be described as a catastrophic shortage of yachts. The poor darlings are resorting to buying boats without even seeing them first!
“With the pandemic, yachts are the safest bubble for vacation and travel,” said Mark Elliott, IYC sales and charter consultant. “Whether chartering or owning, people realized they can control their environment with the yacht and crew while traveling in total comfort.”
While millions of Americans suffer, billionaires are faring just fine (whew!). They have been able to watch their billions skyrocket over 70%, from 2.1 trillion at the beginning of the pandemic to a whopping 5T as of this month. Not only have they increased their wealth, but the billionaire mostly boy’s club got bigger, going from 614 in March, 2020 to currently 745.
According to a chart compiled by Americans for Tax Fairness, in the 19 months from March of 2020 to October of 2021, Elon Musk (Tesla, SpaceX) saw a stratospheric increase in wealth of 751%. Sorry, Jeff Bezos (Amazon), looks like Musk is winning in more than just the space race. In fact, with a mere 70.1% increase in wealth, Bezos didn’t even crack the top five (although Bezos is still richer than Musk). Following Musk, those include: Larry Page (Google) at 137.2%, Sergey Brin (Google) at 136.9%, Mark Zuckerberg (Facebook) at 114.9% and Larry Ellison (formerly Oracle) at 111.1%.
Under current rules, many of these gains will go untaxed, and will be again largely untaxed when left to the future billionaire generation. In their book The Triumph of Injustice, University of California at Berkeley economists Emmanuel Saez and Gabriel Zucman claim that in 2018, billionaires actually paid a lower tax rate than the working class.
According to figures extrapolated from the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS), the average full-time salaried worker in 2019 was $48,600. If that person was to do nothing but save that money, it would take that person in excess of 21,000 years to save a mere billion dollars. To save the kind of money Jeff Bezos has? Only 10 times the length of all human history.
No wonder Wisconsin wants them to start young.
With their net worth skyrocketing, the ultra-rich are snapping up yachts sight unseen — the bigger the better. "The biggest problem is we can't get boats fast enough," one broker tells @byandreachang. https://t.co/D6PFQVXmNW
— Jeff Bercovici (@jeffbercovici) October 22, 2021