Some members of Congress have been trying to score political points by pushing stringent work requirements for people who rely on food stamps to feed their families. Basically it’s a way to play tough with the mostly non-existent population of able-bodied people who don’t have young children and just don’t feel like getting a job because they’re too busy with videogames, or being coddled in their indulgent parents’ basements, or something. And even though it’s all for show, qualification games like this always result in drastic cuts, because systems used to determine eligibility are underfunded, bureaucratic obstacles are daunting by design, and people simply fall through the cracks. For example, when Arkansas imposed work requirements for people receiving Medicaid, the red tape was so thick that a quarter of the people subject to the rules lost their healthcare, even though most people who were able to work were in fact working the whole time.

But here’s what really doesn’t add up. If you’re working, you shouldn’t need food stamps in the first place. The fact that millions of people work for companies like Walmart, Amazon, and McDonald’s and still need public support to afford groceries is fundamentally a problem of greedy corporations paying low wages, not people lounging on their couches. But somehow we’re all supposed to be arguing about work requirements for welfare programs, instead of wage requirements for companies that pay so little their employees require public support. 

Make it make sense.

At a time when wages are growing solidly and jobs are plentiful, it makes sense that three-quarters of Americans report being satisfied with where their own finances are at. But at the same time, the Federal Reserve’s annual survey of economic well-being finds that only 18% of people describe the national economy as at least “good." Of course, it’s a lot easier to assess your own personal experience of whether or not you can pay your bills than to evaluate the entire US economy, especially given the overhang of the pandemic and the depressive economic forecasts that flood the media. And it’s easy to get stuck in the idea that “the economy” is an independent force in the world, a creature of its own that has good years and bad years that aren’t necessarily the same as what you or your family or community are experiencing. But when you get to the bottom of it, the economy is people, and if people are doing well, by definition that means the economy is doing well too… especially when consumer spending points in a different direction than the vibes do.

After two years of rejecting the idea that corporate greed and profit margins could be a key force behind rising prices, the business press is shifting from gaslighting to mansplaining. First Axios explained and tried to rename greedflation while declaring it mainstream, and now Jon Sindreu at the Wall Street Journal makes the extraordinary claim that “‘Greedflation’ Is Real — and Probably Good for the Economy,” Yes, it’s a headline encapsulating a hellishly hot take engineered to generate hate clicks, but Sindreu earns his ratio by writing up the case that higher prices mean higher profits… and that is “helping fight the recession” … because higher prices are pushing consumer spending numbers higher (because everything is more expensive)… and uh profits are just a moral good, maybe? But raising prices to jack up margins on lower sales is extraction, not innovation. And — well, actually — that’s not good for anyone but the zillionaires.

Civic Action
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