real-world economics review, issue no. 92 subscribe for free
The United States of inequality David F. Ruccio [University of Notre Dame] Copyright: David F. Ruccio, 2020
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People on the streets are starting to say, enough. Enough of the inequality, and enough of not having a story about how this ever gets better (Paul Mason, “Capital in the 21st Century”).
We’re not all in this together I’m almost sick of hearing the refrain, “We’re all in this together”. I say almost, because I do think there’s a utopian moment in that phrase in the midst of the current pandemic. It speaks of solidarity, of being in common, of paying attention to and honoring healthcare workers and others who are currently laboring in “essential” activities while the rest of us are instructed to stay at home. In that sense, it betokens – or at least aspires to – a thinking about and caring for others. Otherwise, and this is why I’m getting tired of it, the expression serves to deflect our attention from and to paper over the obscene inequalities that afflict American society. I’m referring not only to the pre-existing unequal condition of the United States – the sharp fissures and enormous chasms that were prevalent before COVID-19, which have been highlighted by its spread – but also to the ways the gap between the haves and have-nots has played an important role in actually causing the spread of the dreaded disease, as well as to the real possibility those inequalities will only get worse as a result of the pandemic and the way the response to it has been devised and implemented in the United States. It has now become almost commonplace, at least within the liberal mainstream media, to note that the unfolding of the novel coronavirus pandemic and the ensuing economic crisis have focused a spotlight on the grotesque inequalities that preceded their onset. With every day that goes by, it has become clearer that the spread of the virus has been profoundly lopsided and uneven – from access to testing and decent, affordable healthcare through who’s been able to shelter in place to the presence of underlying “comorbidities”, all of which have made the virus both more prevalent and more lethal among working-class Americans, including black bus drivers and Hispanic meatpackers, who had already been left behind. The pandemic has also brought with it an escalating economic crisis – and that too has reflected existing inequalities. On one hand, tens of millions of low-wage workers have been especially vulnerable to layoffs, furloughs, shortened hours, and pay cuts, with restaurant and retail workers particularly at risk, increasingly obliged to acquire sustenance for themselves and their families in the country’s understocked food pantries. On the other hand, millions of other workers – who change the linens in hospitals, aid the sick and dying in nursing homes, pack and transport commodities, pick strawberries, and deliver food – have been forced to have the freedom to continue to commute to and labor at their jobs in perilous conditions, increasing the risk of contagion to themselves, their families, and the communities in which they live.
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