5 million people left the labor force during the pandemic, eh? Is that counting all the people that died preventable deaths, or just the ones fortunate enough to be able to escape before they were murdered by capitalism?
It's mostly people who said "fuck this" - people who were on the verge of retiring anyway and mothers with young children who realized they were making like $2/hr after childcare and commuting costs. Most of the people who died were already pushed out of the labor market. ~0.1% of the labor force dying is a big deal, but more important is that the shutdowns plus the booming market made a lot of people decide that working wasn't worth it anymore. A lot of these retirees would have quit their jobs more gradually over the next 3-5 years, Covid just accelerated it.
5 million people left the labor force during the pandemic, eh? Is that counting all the people that died preventable deaths, or just the ones fortunate enough to be able to escape before they were murdered by capitalism?
It's mostly people who said "fuck this" - people who were on the verge of retiring anyway and mothers with young children who realized they were making like $2/hr after childcare and commuting costs. Most of the people who died were already pushed out of the labor market. ~0.1% of the labor force dying is a big deal, but more important is that the shutdowns plus the booming market made a lot of people decide that working wasn't worth it anymore. A lot of these retirees would have quit their jobs more gradually over the next 3-5 years, Covid just accelerated it.