Joe Biden, the Student Loan Crisis, and the Problem with Economic Stimulus
November 20 | 2020
Last week, for the first time since the stock market began its precipitous fall in February, the Dow Jones Industrial Average stabilized above 29,000 points.
By Monday, November 16th, the Dow had surpassed all previous records, closing at 29,950. Meanwhile, the national death rate as a result of COVID-19 is as high as it's been since May. Meanwhile, working Americans continue to struggle and suffer, wasting their gas money waiting in endless lines for limited supplies of free food.
<p>If you, like <a href="https://news.gallup.com/poll/266807/percentage-americans-owns-stock.aspx" target="_blank">nearly half of U.S. adults, don't own any stock at all</a>, the numbers above are essentially meaningless. Even for most of the people who are invested in the stock market, their investment isn't substantial enough to make up for issues like <a href="https://www.cnbc.com/2020/11/19/millions-of-workers-underemployed-as-virus-surges-prompt-closures.html" target="_blank">widespread underemployment.</a><br></p><p>And yet, <a href="https://www.cnn.com/2019/11/22/investing/stocks-market-fed-overnight-lending-rescue/index.html" target="_blank">the Federal Reserve has poured $4 trillion into maintaining the stability of investment markets</a> and ensuring that the Dow, the S&P 500 and various other numbers on charts that seem increasingly disconnected from reality move in the right direction. Why is that?</p><p><div id="ezoic-pub-ad-placeholder-131"></div>
<!-- End Ezoic - incontent2 - long_content --></p><div id="c786e" class="rm-shortcode" data-rm-shortcode-id="ce78aefbea7293933fb97ac5fa2a12a7"><blockquote class="twitter-tweet twitter-custom-tweet" data-twitter-tweet-id="1329252993733185539" data-partner="rebelmouse"><div style="margin:1em 0">30 million people in this country are at risk of eviction.
Millions of people are unemployed or underemployed from… https://t.co/pWGQY94iJT</div> — Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (@Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez)<a href="https://twitter.com/AOC/statuses/1329252993733185539">1605753584.0</a></blockquote></div><p></p><p>The answer to that question is complicated, but it is closely linked to the reason why President-Elect Joe Biden is currently on the receiving end of a lot of scrutiny and pushback on the topic of student loan forgiveness.<br></p><p>Recently the amount of <a href="https://www.marketwatch.com/story/the-17-trillion-question-that-did-not-come-up-during-trump-biden-presidential-debate-2020-09-30" target="_blank">student loan debt in the United States surpassed $1.7 trillion</a>. That amount has more than <a href="https://www.cnbc.com/2020/02/21/bloombergs-plan-to-tackle-the-1point7-trillion-student-loan-crisis.html" target="_blank">tripled in the last 15 years</a>, with around 45 million Americans currently holding some amount of student loan debt, and an average burden in excess of $30,000.</p><p>Most of that debt is <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2020/11/07/your-money/student-loans-bankruptcy.html" target="_blank">nearly impossible to discharge through the standard bankruptcy process</a>. And the fact that most of that burden falls on young people — whose careers are less established and who face generational declines in wages and wealth — exacerbates the impact of that debt. It's a major factor in <a href="https://www.cnbc.com/2018/08/09/millions-of-millennials-are-locked-out-of-homeownership-heres-why.html" target="_blank">the worrying declines in rates of home ownership, marriage, and birth rate among millennials</a>.</p><p><div id="ezoic-pub-ad-placeholder-133"></div>
<!-- End Ezoic - incontent3 - longer_content --></p><p>It is widely acknowledged that the cost of higher education has ballooned out of control while it has increasingly been pushed as a necessary step on the path to prosperity. Underlying this problem is the fact that — <a href="https://www.bbc.com/news/magazine-32821678" target="_blank">unlike many developed nations</a> — our federal government doesn't offer affordable public universities or fund education in fields like medicine and engineering where we always need more skilled professionals.</p><p class="shortcode-media shortcode-media-youtube">
<span style="display:block;position:relative;padding-top:56.25%;" class="rm-shortcode" data-rm-shortcode-id="6c2ef0b20491d7e8b536d4cedead72e7"><iframe type="lazy-iframe" data-runner-src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/Z87xyYAshtA?rel=0" width="100%" height="auto" frameborder="0" scrolling="no" style="position:absolute;top:0;left:0;width:100%;height:100%;"></iframe></span>
<small class="image-media media-caption" placeholder="Add Photo Caption...">Why Is College So Expensive in America? | Making Cents | NowThis</small>
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<a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Z87xyYAshtA" target="_blank">www.youtube.com</a>
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</p><p>Instead we offer government-backed loans and guarantees that incentivize institutions to invest in administrative bloat and in expensive development projects to enhance their prestige and entice prospective students with unnecessary luxuries. Teenagers instilled with little sense of the financial commitments — but an unwavering belief in the necessity of college — have become cash cows.</p><p>The system as it stands is clearly broken, and whatever other reforms are called for, the resulting debt crisis is interfering with the spending power and attainment of an entire generation. In the context of a pandemic that has affected the livelihoods of so many, it would seem like an uncontroversial act for the government to alleviate some of that burden of student debt.<br></p><p>And for the most part, it is. Opinion polling shows that the notion of <a href="https://www.forbes.com/sites/adamminsky/2020/09/25/new-poll-shows-substantial-bipartisan-support-for-student-loan-forgiveness-and-other-relief-for-borrowers/?sh=14602aa12b7c" target="_blank">providing some amount of student loan forgiveness is broadly popular</a> across partisan lines.</p><p>The exception is among the pundit class — and the wealthy donors they represent. Because, as various political figures — including <a href="https://www.cnbc.com/2020/11/16/schumer-suggests-student-debt-forgiveness-through-executive-order.html" target="_blank">Democratic Senators Chuck Schumer and Elizabeth Warren</a> — have begun urging Joe Biden to make student loan forgiveness an early focus of his presidency, others in politics and the news media have done their best to push back.</p><div id="d17b3" class="rm-shortcode" data-rm-shortcode-id="2e3f727d707e9312d1023e111a6db655"><blockquote class="twitter-tweet twitter-custom-tweet" data-twitter-tweet-id="1143504500914884608" data-partner="rebelmouse"><div style="margin:1em 0">When you say #cancelstudentdebt, you’re saying a minority of people who had the advantage of obtaining a degree sho… https://t.co/BMbhxUHAbK</div> — Dan Crenshaw (@Dan Crenshaw)<a href="https://twitter.com/DanCrenshawTX/statuses/1143504500914884608">1561467692.0</a></blockquote></div><p>At the moment, a forbearance measure laid out in the CARES act has been extended through the remainder of 2020 — allowing those with federal student loans to defer payments for the time being. But further action being proposed would include forgiveness for debt owed to private companies.<br></p><p>Among the wide range of suggestions are legislation to provide <a href="https://www.cnbc.com/2020/10/23/biden-proposes-forgiving-10000-in-student-debt-for-public-service.html" target="_blank">$10,000 of debt forgiveness for individuals meeting certain restrictive criteria</a> and $50,000 of automatic forgiveness for all student debt holders — delivered through an executive order as soon as Joe Biden assumes the White House.</p><p>In either case, some would still be left with large burdens of debt, and some would likely be hit with unmanageable tax bills — as debt forgiveness is considered a form of income. But the debate has not largely involved addressing those shortcomings. Rather, many have questioned whether we should be considering these proposals at all.</p><p></p><p><strong>The objections tend to fall into three categories: It wouldn't help the right people, it wouldn't stimulate the economy as much as other measures, and "I paid off my student loans, so why shouldn't they?"</strong></p><p>The last is patently asinine, and should be ignored or mocked as it applies equally to any form of progress — "My face healed after smashing against the dashboard, so why should we add airbags now?" If the people espousing this perspective want to be acknowledged for their fiscal responsibility, here's the entirety of the praise they deserve: Good for you.</p><p>The fact remains that many people are not able to pay off their student loan debts, which can have a ruinous effect on their credit rating, affecting everything from interest rates on other loans to — in a cruel twist — <a href="https://www.cnbc.com/select/can-employers-see-your-credit-score/" target="_blank">their employment prospects</a>. There is a disturbing potential for an accelerating debt cycle that becomes impossible to escape.</p><div id="1d226" class="rm-shortcode" data-rm-shortcode-id="f031972cfe91ea552f9cee44e0d553ad"><blockquote class="twitter-tweet twitter-custom-tweet" data-twitter-tweet-id="1328480231993249796" data-partner="rebelmouse"><div style="margin:1em 0">“Things were bad for me, so they should stay bad for everyone else” is not a good argument against debt cancellatio… https://t.co/yyC60K5Uyz</div> — Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (@Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez)<a href="https://twitter.com/AOC/statuses/1328480231993249796">1605569343.0</a></blockquote></div><p>Even for those who are able to pay off their debts may feel pressured by the monthly payments to accept employment that they otherwise wouldn't — contributing to an imbalance in the employee-employer relationship that could further suppress wages. In short, it's bad.<br></p><p>So while it's valid to point out that there are others in the economy more in need than college graduates, we can't ignore the reality of the student debt crisis. Along with other important measures — further extension and expansion of unemployment benefits, rent subsidies, and direct payments to make it easier for people to stay home — student loan forgiveness should be considered an essential part of COVID relief.</p><p>Which leaves only one complaint left: It wouldn't do enough to stimulate the economy.</p><p>The basic issue is that the benefit of debt forgiveness is spread out over years or decades of remaining loan payments. And because it would also contribute to recipient's tax burdens, there is a concern that much of the cost of debt relief would not result in short term increases in consumer spending — the kind that spurs quick economic growth.</p><p>While that's worth being aware of, doesn't this objection have its priorities reversed? Isn't the entire purpose of a strong economy to improve people's lives? So why are we unwilling to improve people's lives unless it primarily contributes to short term economic growth?</p><p></p><p>Clearly our entire system has embraced this inverted way of thinking. That's why it can pass almost without notice when the Federal Reserve spends $4 trillion to prop up investment markets.</p><p>We happily spend that amount on measures that only directly benefit the wealthy, and yet — when it's suggested that we should spend a fraction of that on a popular policy that could improve the lives of 45 million Americans — it becomes a point of great contention.</p><h2></h2><p>We all seem to have forgotten the essential truth that the economy is meant to serve us — not the other way around.</p>
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Joe Biden, the Student Loan Crisis, and the Problem with Economic Stimulus
November 20 | 2020
Last week, for the first time since the stock market began its precipitous fall in February, the Dow Jones Industrial Average stabilized above 29,000 points.
By Monday, November 16th, the Dow had surpassed all previous records, closing at 29,950. Meanwhile, the national death rate as a result of COVID-19 is as high as it's been since May. Meanwhile, working Americans continue to struggle and suffer, wasting their gas money waiting in endless lines for limited supplies of free food.
<p>If you, like <a href="https://news.gallup.com/poll/266807/percentage-americans-owns-stock.aspx" target="_blank">nearly half of U.S. adults, don't own any stock at all</a>, the numbers above are essentially meaningless. Even for most of the people who are invested in the stock market, their investment isn't substantial enough to make up for issues like <a href="https://www.cnbc.com/2020/11/19/millions-of-workers-underemployed-as-virus-surges-prompt-closures.html" target="_blank">widespread underemployment.</a><br></p><p>And yet, <a href="https://www.cnn.com/2019/11/22/investing/stocks-market-fed-overnight-lending-rescue/index.html" target="_blank">the Federal Reserve has poured $4 trillion into maintaining the stability of investment markets</a> and ensuring that the Dow, the S&P 500 and various other numbers on charts that seem increasingly disconnected from reality move in the right direction. Why is that?</p><p><div id="ezoic-pub-ad-placeholder-131"></div>
<!-- End Ezoic - incontent2 - long_content --></p><div id="c786e" class="rm-shortcode" data-rm-shortcode-id="ce78aefbea7293933fb97ac5fa2a12a7"><blockquote class="twitter-tweet twitter-custom-tweet" data-twitter-tweet-id="1329252993733185539" data-partner="rebelmouse"><div style="margin:1em 0">30 million people in this country are at risk of eviction.
Millions of people are unemployed or underemployed from… https://t.co/pWGQY94iJT</div> — Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (@Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez)<a href="https://twitter.com/AOC/statuses/1329252993733185539">1605753584.0</a></blockquote></div><p></p><p>The answer to that question is complicated, but it is closely linked to the reason why President-Elect Joe Biden is currently on the receiving end of a lot of scrutiny and pushback on the topic of student loan forgiveness.<br></p><p>Recently the amount of <a href="https://www.marketwatch.com/story/the-17-trillion-question-that-did-not-come-up-during-trump-biden-presidential-debate-2020-09-30" target="_blank">student loan debt in the United States surpassed $1.7 trillion</a>. That amount has more than <a href="https://www.cnbc.com/2020/02/21/bloombergs-plan-to-tackle-the-1point7-trillion-student-loan-crisis.html" target="_blank">tripled in the last 15 years</a>, with around 45 million Americans currently holding some amount of student loan debt, and an average burden in excess of $30,000.</p><p>Most of that debt is <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2020/11/07/your-money/student-loans-bankruptcy.html" target="_blank">nearly impossible to discharge through the standard bankruptcy process</a>. And the fact that most of that burden falls on young people — whose careers are less established and who face generational declines in wages and wealth — exacerbates the impact of that debt. It's a major factor in <a href="https://www.cnbc.com/2018/08/09/millions-of-millennials-are-locked-out-of-homeownership-heres-why.html" target="_blank">the worrying declines in rates of home ownership, marriage, and birth rate among millennials</a>.</p><p><div id="ezoic-pub-ad-placeholder-133"></div>
<!-- End Ezoic - incontent3 - longer_content --></p><p>It is widely acknowledged that the cost of higher education has ballooned out of control while it has increasingly been pushed as a necessary step on the path to prosperity. Underlying this problem is the fact that — <a href="https://www.bbc.com/news/magazine-32821678" target="_blank">unlike many developed nations</a> — our federal government doesn't offer affordable public universities or fund education in fields like medicine and engineering where we always need more skilled professionals.</p><p class="shortcode-media shortcode-media-youtube">
<span style="display:block;position:relative;padding-top:56.25%;" class="rm-shortcode" data-rm-shortcode-id="6c2ef0b20491d7e8b536d4cedead72e7"><iframe type="lazy-iframe" data-runner-src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/Z87xyYAshtA?rel=0" width="100%" height="auto" frameborder="0" scrolling="no" style="position:absolute;top:0;left:0;width:100%;height:100%;"></iframe></span>
<small class="image-media media-caption" placeholder="Add Photo Caption...">Why Is College So Expensive in America? | Making Cents | NowThis</small>
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<a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Z87xyYAshtA" target="_blank">www.youtube.com</a>
</small>
</p><p>Instead we offer government-backed loans and guarantees that incentivize institutions to invest in administrative bloat and in expensive development projects to enhance their prestige and entice prospective students with unnecessary luxuries. Teenagers instilled with little sense of the financial commitments — but an unwavering belief in the necessity of college — have become cash cows.</p><p>The system as it stands is clearly broken, and whatever other reforms are called for, the resulting debt crisis is interfering with the spending power and attainment of an entire generation. In the context of a pandemic that has affected the livelihoods of so many, it would seem like an uncontroversial act for the government to alleviate some of that burden of student debt.<br></p><p>And for the most part, it is. Opinion polling shows that the notion of <a href="https://www.forbes.com/sites/adamminsky/2020/09/25/new-poll-shows-substantial-bipartisan-support-for-student-loan-forgiveness-and-other-relief-for-borrowers/?sh=14602aa12b7c" target="_blank">providing some amount of student loan forgiveness is broadly popular</a> across partisan lines.</p><p>The exception is among the pundit class — and the wealthy donors they represent. Because, as various political figures — including <a href="https://www.cnbc.com/2020/11/16/schumer-suggests-student-debt-forgiveness-through-executive-order.html" target="_blank">Democratic Senators Chuck Schumer and Elizabeth Warren</a> — have begun urging Joe Biden to make student loan forgiveness an early focus of his presidency, others in politics and the news media have done their best to push back.</p><div id="d17b3" class="rm-shortcode" data-rm-shortcode-id="2e3f727d707e9312d1023e111a6db655"><blockquote class="twitter-tweet twitter-custom-tweet" data-twitter-tweet-id="1143504500914884608" data-partner="rebelmouse"><div style="margin:1em 0">When you say #cancelstudentdebt, you’re saying a minority of people who had the advantage of obtaining a degree sho… https://t.co/BMbhxUHAbK</div> — Dan Crenshaw (@Dan Crenshaw)<a href="https://twitter.com/DanCrenshawTX/statuses/1143504500914884608">1561467692.0</a></blockquote></div><p>At the moment, a forbearance measure laid out in the CARES act has been extended through the remainder of 2020 — allowing those with federal student loans to defer payments for the time being. But further action being proposed would include forgiveness for debt owed to private companies.<br></p><p>Among the wide range of suggestions are legislation to provide <a href="https://www.cnbc.com/2020/10/23/biden-proposes-forgiving-10000-in-student-debt-for-public-service.html" target="_blank">$10,000 of debt forgiveness for individuals meeting certain restrictive criteria</a> and $50,000 of automatic forgiveness for all student debt holders — delivered through an executive order as soon as Joe Biden assumes the White House.</p><p>In either case, some would still be left with large burdens of debt, and some would likely be hit with unmanageable tax bills — as debt forgiveness is considered a form of income. But the debate has not largely involved addressing those shortcomings. Rather, many have questioned whether we should be considering these proposals at all.</p><p></p><p><strong>The objections tend to fall into three categories: It wouldn't help the right people, it wouldn't stimulate the economy as much as other measures, and "I paid off my student loans, so why shouldn't they?"</strong></p><p>The last is patently asinine, and should be ignored or mocked as it applies equally to any form of progress — "My face healed after smashing against the dashboard, so why should we add airbags now?" If the people espousing this perspective want to be acknowledged for their fiscal responsibility, here's the entirety of the praise they deserve: Good for you.</p><p>The fact remains that many people are not able to pay off their student loan debts, which can have a ruinous effect on their credit rating, affecting everything from interest rates on other loans to — in a cruel twist — <a href="https://www.cnbc.com/select/can-employers-see-your-credit-score/" target="_blank">their employment prospects</a>. There is a disturbing potential for an accelerating debt cycle that becomes impossible to escape.</p><div id="1d226" class="rm-shortcode" data-rm-shortcode-id="f031972cfe91ea552f9cee44e0d553ad"><blockquote class="twitter-tweet twitter-custom-tweet" data-twitter-tweet-id="1328480231993249796" data-partner="rebelmouse"><div style="margin:1em 0">“Things were bad for me, so they should stay bad for everyone else” is not a good argument against debt cancellatio… https://t.co/yyC60K5Uyz</div> — Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (@Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez)<a href="https://twitter.com/AOC/statuses/1328480231993249796">1605569343.0</a></blockquote></div><p>Even for those who are able to pay off their debts may feel pressured by the monthly payments to accept employment that they otherwise wouldn't — contributing to an imbalance in the employee-employer relationship that could further suppress wages. In short, it's bad.<br></p><p>So while it's valid to point out that there are others in the economy more in need than college graduates, we can't ignore the reality of the student debt crisis. Along with other important measures — further extension and expansion of unemployment benefits, rent subsidies, and direct payments to make it easier for people to stay home — student loan forgiveness should be considered an essential part of COVID relief.</p><p>Which leaves only one complaint left: It wouldn't do enough to stimulate the economy.</p><p>The basic issue is that the benefit of debt forgiveness is spread out over years or decades of remaining loan payments. And because it would also contribute to recipient's tax burdens, there is a concern that much of the cost of debt relief would not result in short term increases in consumer spending — the kind that spurs quick economic growth.</p><p>While that's worth being aware of, doesn't this objection have its priorities reversed? Isn't the entire purpose of a strong economy to improve people's lives? So why are we unwilling to improve people's lives unless it primarily contributes to short term economic growth?</p><p></p><p>Clearly our entire system has embraced this inverted way of thinking. That's why it can pass almost without notice when the Federal Reserve spends $4 trillion to prop up investment markets.</p><p>We happily spend that amount on measures that only directly benefit the wealthy, and yet — when it's suggested that we should spend a fraction of that on a popular policy that could improve the lives of 45 million Americans — it becomes a point of great contention.</p><h2></h2><p>We all seem to have forgotten the essential truth that the economy is meant to serve us — not the other way around.</p>
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"You Can't Have Both": The Impossible Struggle of Working Parents in COVID Capitalism
July 02 | 2020
In her impassioned, desperate diatribe on the increasingly untenable position of working parents—caught between work and child care in the reopening economy—food writer Deb Perelman asks her readers two incredulous questions:
"Why isn't anyone talking about this? Why are we not hearing a primal scream so deafening that no plodding policy can be implemented without addressing the people buried by it?"
As it turns out, those primal screams were waiting patiently for Deb Perelman to lead them in unison. Within minutes of her article going live in the business section of The New York Times, thousands of users on Twitter were sharing the link accompanied by choice quotes like, "Allowing workplaces to reopen while schools, camps and day cares remain closed tells a generation of working parents that it's fine if they lose their jobs, insurance and livelihoods in the process."
<p>As <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2020/07/02/business/covid-economy-parents-kids-career-homeschooling.html" target="_blank">Perelman's article</a> makes clear, while law-makers and government officials have arranged plans <a href="https://www.libertyproject.com/reopening-economies-2646028242.html" target="_blank">to ensure that economic conditions return to normal as quickly as possible for wealthy business owners</a>, there has been little apparent concern for how reopening measures would affect families with school-age children.</p><p><div id="ezoic-pub-ad-placeholder-131"></div>
<!-- End Ezoic - incontent2 - long_content --></p><div id="b4f79" class="rm-shortcode" data-rm-shortcode-id="d0d341d8d63b61d2a3e314e20b42b048"><blockquote class="twitter-tweet twitter-custom-tweet" data-twitter-tweet-id="1278687864818208768" data-partner="rebelmouse"><div style="margin:1em 0">I released the primal scream that we -- and countless other parents for whom this situation isn't just untenable, i… https://t.co/o0XVE1JGvg</div> — deb perelman (@deb perelman)<a href="https://twitter.com/debperelman/statuses/1278687864818208768">1593697918.0</a></blockquote></div><p>In Perelman's case, living in New York City, this lack of consideration reached a breaking point when she became aware of <a href="https://www.cnn.com/2020/06/29/us/new-york-schools-reopening-plans-coronavirus-wellness/index.html" target="_blank">current plans for the fall school term</a>. In order to ensure that each student is afforded a minimum of 65 square feet of classroom space, only a third of students will be in the school building in any given week—the other two thirds learning remotely.<br></p><p>For the time being, while the science on how COVID-19 is contracted and spread by children remains unclear, these sorts of measures are seen as necessary to prevent sudden, overwhelming spikes in the infection rate. But for parents like Perelman and her husband, this means that two weeks out of every three, their children—one approaching kindergarten, the other entering 6th grade—will need to be home.</p><p>The fact that Perelman's husband is among the tens of millions who have been laid off during the COVID-19 lockdown has made it possible to maintain child care while Perelman works from home, setting her own exhausting hours.</p><p><div id="ezoic-pub-ad-placeholder-133"></div>
<!-- End Ezoic - incontent3 - longer_content --></p><p>But what happens to them and countless other parents who are struggling to keep their children educated and supervised when he is rehired or forced to start looking for a new job? How are they supposed to pay their bills and take care of their children?</p><p>The problem is obviously even worse for parents who may not have had the option—like Perelman—to work from home, or haven't had the resources to maintain their children's education with online tutors and extra school supplies.</p><p class="shortcode-media shortcode-media-youtube">
<span style="display:block;position:relative;padding-top:56.25%;" class="rm-shortcode" data-rm-shortcode-id="9680d3247fe9b89fc011c2b1f2efc182"><iframe type="lazy-iframe" data-runner-src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/Au2CMmqB0Mo?rel=0" width="100%" height="auto" frameborder="0" scrolling="no" style="position:absolute;top:0;left:0;width:100%;height:100%;"></iframe></span>
<small class="image-media media-caption" placeholder="Add Photo Caption...">Here's what schools could look like this fall amid pandemic l GMA</small>
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<a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Au2CMmqB0Mo" target="_blank">www.youtube.com</a>
</small>
</p><p>As Perelman points out, these and other <a href="https://services.aap.org/en/pages/2019-novel-coronavirus-covid-19-infections/clinical-guidance/covid-19-planning-considerations-return-to-in-person-education-in-schools/" target="_blank">issues with remote learning have already affected student outcomes</a> and have likely expanded the existing achievement gaps along racial and socioeconomic lines. But those issues are certain to get worse as more and more parents are forced to return to work without viable child care options.<br></p><p>While the wealthy will be fine, many in the middle class (particularly mothers) will be forced to choose their children over their long-term career plans. And as for poor and working class parents, far too many will have no choice at all—will have to keep working and leave their children unsupervised.</p><p>While the proximate cause of this mess is obviously the coronavirus pandemic gripping the world and requiring adaptive measures to counter its spread, there is a deeper issue that can be tied—as with so many societal problems—to the structure of capitalism.</p><p>It's the same problem that English philosopher <a href="https://harpers.org/archive/1932/10/in-praise-of-idleness/" target="_blank">Bertrand Russell pointed out in his essay "In Praise of Idleness"</a>. It's the same problem that recurs on a near constant basis in our society, but it's most evident in the aftermath of a crisis: At every opportunity to give workers more freedom, we instead choose to increase productivity.</p><p>When Russell published the essay in 1932, he had in mind the aftermath of World War I, when soldiers returned home from the front, effectively doubling the workforce.<br></p><p>As he notes, living standards and productive industry had been maintained throughout the war thanks to mechanization and thoughtful planning. The populous remained fed and clothed and housed despite the loss of so many workers to the war.</p><p>Less work was needed to achieve the same outcome, which meant that—when those workers finally returned—there was the option to allow everyone to work half as much and still make a living wage.</p><div id="f3070" class="rm-shortcode" data-rm-shortcode-id="d49f3d229125feb709dadf0b22150481"><blockquote class="twitter-tweet twitter-custom-tweet" data-twitter-tweet-id="1278691347881431042" data-partner="rebelmouse"><div style="margin:1em 0">NYC has an elaborate four-phase reopening plan that doesn’t even mention daycare lol https://t.co/vGAq9GQszJ</div> — Jason Schreier (@Jason Schreier)<a href="https://twitter.com/jasonschreier/statuses/1278691347881431042">1593698748.0</a></blockquote></div><p>But no. Instead productivity was increased, workers were laid off, and it was still necessary to work 40 hours a week to get by. And that's where things in England, the US, and much of the world remain to this day.<br></p><p>The same dynamic was in play in the second half of the 20th century as it became the norm for women to join the workforce. There were twice as many workers, but rather than cut the work week in half, we kept it at 40 hours, increased productivity, and allowed wages to stagnate so that two incomes were soon necessary for a basic standard of living—and working mothers were still expected to perform traditional child care duties.</p><p>We've invented so many machines and systems to make our work lives more efficient and our home lives more convenient, but instead of framing these advances as opportunities to increase our freedom—to reduce the work week to 20 hours, as Russell suggests, and give workers the opportunity to redirect their energy toward their passions and interests, we treat them as tools to increase profit for those at the very top.</p><p>They replace workers with automation and outsourcing and pay those who remain less while investors and executives rake in more. Because growth of investment is the ultimate ideal driving the whole machine—even if that machine is wringing the life out of workers and the planet alike.</p><p>Right now <a href="https://www.wsws.org/en/articles/2020/07/01/jobs-j01.html" target="_blank">around half of working-age Americans aren't working</a>. The work force is set to return in a big way in coming months—just as it did after WWI. If we shifted our priorities toward a more humane objective, we could see this crisis and the aftermath not as <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2017/jul/06/naomi-klein-how-power-profits-from-disaster" target="_blank">another occasion to benefit the wealthy and push working people to their limit</a>, but as an opportunity to increase the freedom and the happiness in the world.</p><div id="27ba5" class="rm-shortcode" data-rm-shortcode-id="fd18994f6231e20b4a21ddd4b1123dd5"><blockquote class="twitter-tweet twitter-custom-tweet" data-twitter-tweet-id="1278674382278348800" data-partner="rebelmouse"><div style="margin:1em 0">We need universal child care.
https://t.co/qu6BVe4E9q</div> — Jamaal Bowman (@Jamaal Bowman)<a href="https://twitter.com/JamaalBowmanNY/statuses/1278674382278348800">1593694704.0</a></blockquote></div><p>Shift to a 30-hour work week (without reducing pay) and give workers—especially working parents—some flexibility for when they work those hours. Suddenly child care and home-schooling wouldn't be nearly such an overwhelming burden. Better still, provide them with that child care. Suddenly workers would have energy left over to find new ways to thrive—rather than only surviving.<br></p><p>It may seem far-fetched, but <a href="https://www.libertyproject.com/may-day-general-strike-2645859023.html" target="_blank">changes like this have happened before</a> when workers were united. The only thing preventing it now is that we haven't all joined our voice with that primal, deafening scream and demanded what we deserve.</p>
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Mikkel Berg Pedersen/Ritzau Scanpix/AFP/Getty Images
Over 9,000 concerts organized by Live Nation have been canceled or postponed by the health crisis.
The event promoter/venue operator has reported a significant financial challenge. Live music has taken a quite a halt, but with talks of reopening, safety precautions must be heavily considered; Alabama is introducing socially-distanced arena shows, while Denmark has been hosting drive-in concerts. During a recent earnings call, Live Nation CEO Michael Rapino fielded questions about the future of the concert industry and how he plans to bring things back to normal.
<p>"So over the next six months, we'll be starting slow and small, focusing on the basics and testing regionally," he said. "But whether it's in Arkansas or [another] state that is safe, secure, and politically fine to proceed in, we're going to dabble in fan-less concerts with broadcasts and reduced-capacity shows, because we can make the math work. There are a lot of great artists that can sell out an arena, but they'll do higher-end theaters or clubs."</p><p>"So you're gonna see us [gradually reopening] in different countries, whether it's Finland, Asia, Hong Kong — certain markets are farther ahead [in the recovery process]," he continued. "Over the summer there will be testing happening, whether it's fan-less concerts, which offer great broadcast opportunities and are really important for our sponsorship business; drive-in concerts, which we're going to test and roll out and we're having some success with; or reduced-capacity festival concerts, which could be outdoors in a theater on a large stadium floor, where there's enough room to be safe."</p><p><div id="ezoic-pub-ad-placeholder-131"></div>
<!-- End Ezoic - incontent2 - long_content --></p><p>"We think in the fall, if there are no second hotspots, you'll see markets around the world [reopening] — Europe, specifically, has talked about opening up 5000-plus [gatherings] in September," Rapino concluded. "And on the venue side, we're dealing with federal, the White House, every government body you can imagine, and we've got a great task force around what we have to do with the venue to make you safe. So I think in the fall you'll see more experimenting and more shows happening in a theater setting, into some arenas. And then our goal is really to be on sale in the third and fourth quarters for 2021 at full scale."</p><p><div id="ezoic-pub-ad-placeholder-133"></div>
<!-- End Ezoic - incontent3 - longer_content --></p><h2></h2><p>Although drive-in concerts seem like fender benders waiting to happen—and impossible for cities like New York—it'll be nice to have one more activity to keep people occupied.</p>
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