And yet, we must not forget that a large number of workers – about a quarter – do not have access to paid holidays or vacations. Many of them are part-time and in the bottom 25% of earners, toiling in service occupations or working in leisure and hospitality.
Maybe this disparity in who gets paid vacation time is neither surprising nor troubling. After all, low-wage and low-benefit jobs are often derided as “low-skilled,” which is a catchall phrase to describe work that requires less formal education. This is another way of saying that although such workers may get very little in terms of benefits, they are entitled to them.
Such thinking is short-sighted, and a lost opportunity for the economy to potentially create a new path to the middle class for millions of Americans.
Last year saw the dominance of artificial intelligence throughout the economy. Goldman Sachs Group Inc. predicted that 1 in 10 Businesses used AI in some form by the end of the year. This is a trend that many employees fear destroy jobs once thought stay safeespecially white collar Which have been a source of development and security. If AI can eliminate those types of jobs, where does that leave the rest?
In times of uncertainty, the past has an indelible allure. Tariffs to revive manufacturing, deportations to reverse immigration, traditional wives Those who take pride in not working (and who won’t take a job from a man) – have their own way of retreating, avoiding each uncertain step forward.
Still, many jobs with low wages and/or no paid leave remain untouched by AI. Hotels can start using AI chatbots instead of concierges, but that chatbot can’t unload luggage from cars or provide extra towels. Restaurants can use iPads for ordering, but someone still needs to prepare the food and deliver it to customers. The same is true for movie theaters, salons and spas, as well as the care economy, which includes child care centers, nursing homes, hospices and hospitals.
It’s a mesmerizing thought to realize that these are functions that will always require a physical person to operate, and yet policy makers have largely ignored them. If policymakers were to choose differently, they could take this “future-proof” part of the labor market and potentially create a new path to the middle class.
For a long time, Americans have associated good, middle-class jobs with manufacturing — employment that pays well but doesn’t require much formal education. However, consider that working on a factory line isn’t that far from tending tables at a restaurant, wheeling patients around a hospital, or caring for children. It can be physical, but often it’s small tasks. And yet one gets health and retirement benefits, and the other doesn’t even get time for vacation.
To be clear, it’s not like there’s some magic wand that can be waved that turns a service-worker Cinderella into a middle-class princess. The output of a factory is more valuable in the economy than the output of some services. For example, cars cost more than food, which helps determine the wages of workers in the auto and restaurant industries. Furthermore, many middle-class identities, such as homeownership, are falling out of reach for reasons beyond wages. But policy may play a role, because that car may be built with the help of AI tools and fewer humans — or built somewhere else — but that restaurant isn’t going anywhere and the cost of preparing, serving, and clean- People will be needed for cleaning.
Think of it this way: If there is a certainty that a job will be around in 25 years, guaranteed that it cannot be replaced by AI or outsourced to another country, how low should its quality be? ? Should there be paid holidays and paid holidays? Policy makers should pay attention to jobs that lack basic standards and yet they will not disappear, they will have to take a decision.
And paid holidays and vacations aren’t the only concern, or even the top priority, given that a quarter of workers don’t even get paid sick days, three-quarters don’t even get family leave is, and that wage, hour, and workplace safety enforcement agencies have fallow budgets, and the federal minimum wage is an embarrassing $7.25 an hour.
What to do? Update the Fair Labor Standards Act. It was originally established to set minimum wages, overtime and prohibit child labour. Today fair means requiring the accumulation of paid vacation, sick days, and holidays while increasing the federal pay level. Also, boost funding to enforce those laws. The cost to government is nothing for standards and modest for enforcement (current wage and hour funding is just over $2 billion). Paid family leave is a different thing – it’s more of a risk than a benefit and should therefore be factored into a social insurance scheme like Social Security.
Employers, especially small businesses, will undoubtedly claim that such costs would be prohibitive. This may be true for some businesses, but Bureau of Labor Statistics It is estimated that for employers that provide such benefits, paid vacations, holidays, and sick days account for 3.5%, 2.2%, and 1% of total compensation costs. And two-thirds of businesses with fewer than 100 employees already offer paid holidays and vacations, and even more offer paid sick days.
Sure, this has a cost but there is also a clear dividend: high-quality jobs that are a permanent part of the economy. There is no way to guarantee that today’s low-paid food server will be tomorrow’s middle class, but there is one way to guarantee that today’s low-paid food server will be tomorrow’s low-paid food server. And Policy The manufacturers have nothing to do. Consider not what these jobs were or are, but what they could be. Make policy for the future we know is coming, not for the past.
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