Commentary: The Latest Attack on Gig Workers

business meeting

The whole point of the Biden administration’s budget-busting $1.9 trillion stimulus bill is to aid struggling workers after the COVID-19 shutdowns obliterated their earnings. The legislation is also, as CNN described it, “a platform for a generational transformation of the economy to benefit the least well-off Americans and alleviate poverty.”

If the administration wants to boost the prospects of less-well-off Americans, it could loosen the shutdowns so they can get back to work. It could increase opportunities for poor Americans to have alternatives to the public school systems that leave their kids ill prepared for the new economy — or at least encourage its teachers union allies to stop resisting plans to reopen the schools (something that hurts the poor the most). That would be transformative.

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