Don’t Blame Econ 101 for the Plight of Essential
Workers
“Simple economic concepts, such as supply and demand,
certainly help explain these dynamics. These positions tend to require
relatively few educational credentials or certifications. The skills necessary
to work at a checkout counter or change sheets in a hospital tend to be easy to
pick up and nontechnical. This means that the pool of eligible workers is
large, and it’s easy for employers to hire and fire. You don’t face a high
barrier to entry if you’re looking for a job as a line cook or a nanny. And
replacing you is not hard, if you quit or get laid off.
Still, this fact does not in and of itself consign
essential jobs to being bad jobs, labor experts stressed. No fundamental
principle of economics requires burger flippers to make $7.25 an hour. “The
Econ 101 argument is that workers are paid on the marginal productivity of their
labor,” Darrick Hamilton, an economist and the executive director of the Kirwan
Institute for the Study of Race and Ethnicity at Ohio State University, said.
But that is too simplistic”.