March Jobs Report a Glimmer of Hope in Grim Economic Forecast

Will the U.S. economy ever fully recover from such a lengthy shut-down? Not if the media can help it.

Photo by Martin Sanchez on Unsplash.

Convincing people to isolate at home during the outbreak of a deadly virus was, at first, surprisingly easy.

With what boundless optimism we began this long and lonely coronavirus journey. In the beginning, we indulged wholeheartedly in novelties like Zoom as we cluelessly planned to be back about our normal routines in no time.

How quickly “flatten the curve” and “two weeks to slow the spread” became “just another six months” then “we are never, ever getting back to normal”. Calling off large sporting events seemed like a no-brainer. Pulling kids out of school, especially poor and at risk kids, seemed, to some, less so.

After all, Uber Eats and Amazon Prime deliveries were continuing apace for America’s new elite Laptop Class, who easily transitioned to at-home jobs and lost no income during this time, plus likely received stimulus money at that. The better to online shop at Amazon, which saw a 38% increase in year-over-year profits in 2020.

Less time at the office seemed just the thing to this class of Covid-19 winners. And since they were so often also members of the media, advocating for continued, wide-spread economic shut downs- for safety’s sake, of course- was likewise a very easy choice.

Not everyone was a winner in the Covid-19 shut-downs, as two-weeks to slow the spread became a year in which many of us feel we’ve at least lived five. Small local businesses, the ones still hanging on, can only dream of Amazon-like profit margin increases like 38%.

Covid-19 hit minority neighborhoods and the working poor particularly hard, our journalistic elites have been busily noticing this entire time, though failing to note the main reason for this unfair discrepancy.

Minorities and the poor have been hit particularly hard by Covid because so many have been out working this entire year…so that the Laptop Class could stay home and safely quarantine in comfort, if not opulence.

The working poor, of all descriptions, hold more of those jobs deemed “too essential” (for elites) to forego during this difficult time. Food…