The question asked by the Oct. 24 Sunday Valley News Business & Money section — “Where are all the workers?” — is answered in the Associated Press/Report for America article and Valley News business writer John Lippman’s Bottom Line column, both of which appeared under that headline.
The acute lack of child care and the attitudes toward work and wages are two of the reasons why people are not working. It is literally cheaper to stay home. However, federal and state policymakers have chosen to ignore the obvious.
The Associated Press/Report for America article described how Republican governors took the punitive approach they are generally known for, and prematurely cut off extra federal unemployment aid to force people to take a job, any job.
That tactic backfired for the reasons mentioned above.
The lack of any kind of universal health program is another driver.
In this country, policymakers would rather try reform than fund the kind of public programs that lift up individuals and families. Removing the stress by providing health care, child care and family leave, just to name a few programs, would be rewarded with the ability to go to work.
Business owners hurt themselves by not supporting their own infrastructure, which consists of their necessary workers (meaning people).
I believe that most people who are able (and many who have challenges) would rejoin the workforce. They are waiting for a better offer and some systemic changes.
SHARON RACUSIN
Hanover
The so called “balanced” news, including CNN and National Public Radio, repeatedly ignore that Republicans in both the Senate and the House are blockading any progress for the common good. The two corporatist U.S. senators, Joe Manchin, D-W.Va., and Kyrsten Sinema, D-Ariz., are repeatedly used as examples of the Democratic failure.
But I believe it is the failure of the entire Republican Party to engage with the Build Back Better Act to get their feedback and concerns into the bill that is the true and utter failure of U.S. politics.
Many of us know the role Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell has played as master obstructionist for years now. I believe it is the Republicans who are failing us. The Republicans have given everything away to the wealthy for decades. They seek only money and power and work to destroy our personal freedoms through social control, imposing their priorities over our bodies.
If the media continue doing now what they did during the horrifying Trump years, pretending they are providing balanced reporting, we will get the same result: delusional, thoughtless Americans raging against a thoughtful, progressive future.
Be forewarned, media: You are to blame for the fall if you continue your false weighing.
VICKI WARD
Barnard
I recently found out that both San Francisco and New York City require proof of vaccination to eat in any restaurant. I know Vermont and New Hampshire are unlikely to require this, but I for one — who won’t eat in an indoor restaurant for now — would definitely do so if proof of vaccination were required.
I suggest that restaurants that decide to do this might get more inside patrons.
ALINE ORDMAN
White River Junction