Published: 9/25/2021 10:20:06 PM
Modified: 9/25/2021 10:20:07 PM
After weeks of reading about climate disasters ranging from drought, tropical storms and massive wildfires, there was one small shred of positive news embedded in a New York Times “guest essay” earlier this month by MIT economist David Autor. In “Good News: There’s a Labor Shortage,” Autor dismisses the conventional wisdom tying the dearth of workers to overly generous benefits from the federal government or problems confronting women who need to find child care. Instead, he posits that many low-wage workers are rethinking how they spend their time.
“Americans are less eager to do low-paid, often dead-end service and hospitality work, deciding instead that more time on family, education and leisure makes for a higher standard of living, even if it means less consumption.”
Autor suggests that when the pandemic gave America’s low-wage workers time to reflect on how their days are spent, they concluded that working simply to keep their heads above water did not provide peace of mind. He also concluded that an increasing number of low-wage workers saw that the definition of “standard of living” — conventionally based on family income — was flawed. They realized that trying to earn more money by taking on more jobs or working more hours to buy more things did not necessarily improve their lives. They came to understand that George Carlin was right: Earning more money just to get more stuff to fill their homes and garages was pointless.
Several recent articles and studies suggest that Autor’s findings apply to a much wider range of employees. Texas A&M University business professor Anthony Klotz, whose review of surveys and employment data indicated a marked increase in voluntary resignations by employees at all skill levels, dubbed the phenomenon “The Great Resignation.” This trend, which emerged in the years prior to 2019, accelerated during the pandemic. Like the low-paid employees Autor describes, Klotz concluded that when the pandemic gave workers with college degrees the flexibility and freedom that comes from working at home — and gave them time to reflect on their work — they concluded that “meaning and purpose” were more important than money.
The result is evident in U.S. Department of Labor surveys showing that 11.5 million workers quit their jobs in April, May and June of 2021, and multiple polls taken show that roughly 50% of those who were employed expressed a desire to change jobs.
This questioning of our traditional notion of “standard of living,” and the quest for more meaning in the workplace, is great news for planet Earth. If workers are willing to trade money for time — knowing that doing so would require them to consume less — it would reduce the stress on the planet. Any reduction in consumption would necessarily reduce the destruction of the environment, for material consumption requires more energy — to extract the raw materials, to manufacture the goods and to transport them to the marketplace.
And here is even better news for the planet: Since America’s standard of living is the international ideal, a change in our nation’s view of work, its meaning and its purpose could have positive global ramifications. If America’s workers maintain the “more stuff is better” ethos, and workers in emerging nations set their expectations accordingly, our planet’s resources will diminish rapidly and the global climate crisis will continue unabated.
If, on the other hand, workers in emerging economies see U.S. workers change their focus from acquiring more and more material possessions to, for example, spending more time with family, it might be possible to develop a new global ethic that places a premium on the survival of the planet over the consumption of goods.
Changing the “more is better” ethos can only come from the bottom up. As New York Times columnist Ezra Klein observed in a recent podcast, it is very hard for politicians to impose outcomes and social mores that individuals do not already believe. That is especially true in our increasingly polarized world.
But if Autor and Klotz are right and there is a groundswell among workers to trade money for time, to forego the accumulation of stuff in favor of meaning and purpose, the rules governing the economy could change. A 40-hour workweek was inconceivable at one point, as were Social Security and Medicare. Based on our recent experience with pandemic stimulus payments, maybe some form of universal basic income might be possible, or even universal child care and health care.
I realize that paying for all that would be a challenge. But if there is an emerging consensus that more stuff is not better, it might be possible to engage in a political debate on a tax code that explicitly defines “enough” and levies higher taxes on earnings and wealth in excess of that figure. Is a salary of, say, $500,000 per year enough? Is passing along an inheritance of, say, $1 million enough? Are corporate profits of, say, 4% a year enough?
Higher tax rates for those who have “enough,” and on businesses with more than “enough” profits, are not unprecedented and would not stymie economic growth. In the 1950s, under President Dwight Eisenhower, the top tax rate was 91% and our economy was healthy.
If we could agree on what constitutes enough and levy higher tax rates above that figure, we might find that there is enough money to rebuild our infrastructure, provide affordable health care to everyone, provide a basic income and move away from an economic model that requires too many of our neighbors to work in low-wage, dead-end jobs.
Wayne Gersen lives in Etna.
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