A year in crisis

Looking at the new stimulus bill alongside everything we've been through

Tomorrow the House will vote again on the new stimulus bill. The bill contains provisions to expand the child tax credit, to send stimulus checks to qualifying people, and to maintain unemployment benefits at $300 a week. It does not contain a $15 hourly minimum wage boost, nor does it provide $2000 stimulus checks.

Depending on where you live in the country and when your state began to impose COVID-related restrictions, this week may mark a full pandemic year in your life. Social media platforms are full of retrospectives — the last time we went to a restaurant or saw a concert or knocked on doors for a presidential candidate — while, at the same time, the material stability that we need to be able to process these absences in our lives has never felt further away. Entire Senate campaigns made their cases by acknowledging that two thousand dollars added to Americans’ bank accounts would change lives drastically. Knowing that 1400 + 600 = 2000, though, won’t change the fact that the new checks are means-tested enough to keep them out of the hands of 17 million people who received the original $600. They’re months too late, hundreds of dollars too little, because the Democratic Party establishment is worried about Republican votes it won’t win.

The child tax credit, health care subsidies and other programs will significantly reduce poverty. But all of these measures are temporary. A nice short-term bandaid on a gaping wound and with Biden ruling out changes to the filibuster, it’s may also be the only significant piece of legislation that will pass in Biden’s first term. This bill has been called the most significant anti-poverty legislation in a generation. If so that’s more of an indictment of this generation than an accolade for this bill.

What will come in the next year? Hopefully, people around the world will continue to be vaccinated, and the immediate threat of the coronavirus upon everyday life will diminish. The retrospective of how our lives have changed and how our government has failed us in the past year is sobering, and it offers insight into the political struggles that we must organize to win. For example, as we wrote last week, Kyrsten Sinema’s theatrical display of animosity toward the working class speaks volumes about the “unity” at the heart of Democratic politics: a unity based upon corporate fawning. And while seven other Democratic senators chose to vote more discreetly against a higher minimum wage, their message was clear. People in minimum-wage jobs — those who have made it possible for others to eat, shop for essentials, and avoid exposure to COVID-19 — are being told that their labor is worth the occasional grandstanding tweet from Washington politicians, but it’s not worth compensation that will allow them to lead a stable, secure life. Budget Chairman Bernie Sanders was right to propose a different approach; the Biden administration showed its elitist colors by allowing the Senate parliamentarian to exclude the wage increase. But every day proves that poverty wages are killing people, and the politicians who cheer for those poverty wages deserve to be met with a reckoning.

We hope that the coming year is better for all of us. The unionizing efforts of Amazon workers and the militancy of teachers’ unions suggest how this will be possible. In the midst of crisis, we’re inspired by the people who understand the collective power of organized labor: power that can shut down workplace abuse, secure healthcare, win living wages, and improve the lives of all. Capitalism, the economic system that has given us privatized vaccine rollouts, GoFundMe pages instead of universal healthcare, and a country where $2000 in the hand means life or death, won’t give up without a fight. Now, people who are getting their workplaces organized show us what that fight will look like.

Thanks for reading. We can’t wait to share our weekly conversation with you this Friday. This week’s guest will be John Nichols of the Nation who has been a strong voice for labor and working class politics from his home state of Wisconsin. Audio will be available on Substack and streaming platforms like Spotify, Apple Podcasts, Stitcher, Pandora, and more starting Saturday.