Capitalism and COVID

If last years pandemic has shun light on anything lately it is the fractures and fissures within the American Dream that we otherwise are taught to be solidified and true. No more true is daily exposed in than the hospitality industry, an issue that leaders themselves could become mavericks of in extending solutions.

With 44% of Americans considered low-wage workers, it is disheartening that those most at risk with the reopening of our nation are the lowest-wage workers with almost obsolete safety nets to protect them in uncertain times such as these. The precarious nature of the industry itself and their jobs is a driving factor to the continuation of attrition and lack of upward mobility. These are not low skill jobs, they are low wage jobs.

Policy makers and and private-sector leaders alike have an opportunity to address this and create meaningful change that might begin to not only heal this nation but redirect it back to the national platform that promulgates substantive equity that nations like Singapore, Germany, Austria and France otherwise currently do already.

The American Dream is not dead but it hasn’t actively adapted with the fast paced and ever evolving world we live in today. The private sector’s investment in decreasing the skills gap and pay gap would show in dividends in the good times and in times of pandemic and uncertainty.

Sasha Fisher

Coeur d’Alene