Working from Home Defines the New Normal

01/04/2021 06:00:00 AM

Changes family life, housing, daycare, climate, and infrastructure needs.

Not everyone can work from home (WFH), of course. But the huge shift to WFH will change life for everyone, even the essential many who still need to commute to their jobs and will be paid more for the extra effort. As new legislatures convene in the new year, they will try to spend billions to restore the old normal and solve problems which WFH is solving for us. We can’t let them do that. There will be new problems of the new normal which do need solutions.

The long-term effects of WFH are:

This is a time of enormous challenge and opportunity. We’ll blow it if we try to put the old normal back together again or persist in solving yesterdays’ problems. We’ll certainly blow it if we persist in trying to preserve asset values for the wealthy. Much of what passes for “bipartisan” pandemic relief already looks more like wealthfare than help for those who need it.

There is an automatic WFH bonus for the families who now don’t have to spend time and money paying the expenses of commuting; we will not be able to make minimum wage apply to them; they will be measured by productivity. We need a much higher minimum wage for those commuting workers who’ve just shown how essential they are and who work where hours can be measured. The extra cost of higher wages to essential workers will be a reasonable expense to us in the WFH crowd when we use their services directly and indirectly.

See also:

If There Were No Welfare, There’d be No Need for a Minimum Wage

Celebrate Labor Day and Essential Workers by Substantially Raising Minimum Wage

Forward to a New Normal

#Newnormal: Mass Transit