In the spring of 2017, I left a cushy social media marketing job for a dishwashing job in Manitou Springs. I was burned out with social media after running for office for three consecutive years. The first time I ran for office in 2015 was the most nerve-wracking of my political campaigns. I had used social media as the focus of my campaign. I knocked on doors and attended candidate forums, too. The following years saw me campaign less though the stress of being a candidate never waned until a few days after an election.
In March of 2020, I lost my dishwashing job because of the edicts Colorado Governor Jared Polis imposed on bars and restaurants. By summer, I was happily back washing dishes again. My workload was weirdly reduced since capacity had been forcefully lowered. In the fall, I was again laid off and went back to work in February of this year. Each time I was laid off, I applied and briefly received unemployment benefits.
The bar I work at is at full capacity and has been extremely busy since at least Mother’s Day weekend. As the spring rolled into summer, and the Great Edicts of Economic Destruction ended and the negative consequences continued, the bar has become even busier.
My dishwashing job was only supposed to be a temporary job. It was a job-in-between-jobs. It pays little more than minimum wage. It’s probably the most physically demanding job I’ve ever had, too. And nobody wants my job, which is just as well: I’ve been offered dishwashing jobs at other restaurants but will stay at my current job until I find another one, hopefully in a climate-controlled office with a desk.
All throughout the pandemic, I ain’t seen a politician or any government employee express concern about people working on the lower end of the pay scale. People with disabilities often take minimum or near-minimum wage jobs as permanent jobs as do a variety of other people for equally different reasons. I am now working my fifth consecutive, and hopefully final, summer as a dishwasher.
Reams of newspaper articles scream of how the governor and government bureaucrats are “helping” the industries most severely damaged by the governor’s Great Edicts of Economic Destruction or just GREED if you want to turn it into an acronym. Tax breaks for businesses will probably help those that are struggling today, but there’s nothing for workers in the same context.
Today, there are not enough restaurant employees; too many people are happily receiving unemployment benefits. Bonuses are offered to those on unemployment to go back to work. Where is the help for the working poor? I don’t see anything anywhere.
Since the housing market is blistering hot, where is the help for the working poor? No grants for them and their rising rents? Eviction moratoriums, while issued at the federal level, were supported by the governor and his government bureaucrats and directly made the housing market less affordable for most everyone, most notably those barely able to keep a roof over their heads.
Gas is more expensive. Food costs are rising. Medical care seems somewhat risky since the industry has capitulated to COVID-19. And really, if you’re a worker on the lower end of the pay scale, you are, for all intents and purposes, royally screwed by the very same people who pretend to care about the poor: the governor and his political tribe.
What the governor and the state legislature can do is work to eliminate the state income tax for all lower-wage workers for the next five or 10 years. I’d even suggest permanently eliminating the income tax for everyone, too, but baby steps may be the best way forward.
Eliminating the income tax will help people find better housing, afford gas and more necessities, assuming inflation fostered and enabled by state and federal governments doesn’t continue reducing their purchasing power.
People working on the lower end of the pay scale always have an option to find better and gainful employment. But life ain’t an edict written by people sitting at desks all day long imagining what the real world must be like. Life is taking a job-in-between-jobs and staying with it a little too long because the governor and his political tribe interfered with the economy and markets.
In January of 2020, I was full of hope and excitement of a dream to start a tourism-related business in Manitou Springs. By May, that dream was DOA, thanks to the governor and his GREED. It’d be nice if he could send me a grant to get my business started, but alas, I’m part of the working poor and the best I could probably hope for is for my boss to give me a small raise.
Either that, or I’ll find a job creating content for social media marketing. I guess that’s the silver lining with the labor shortages: people who do want to work will find more opportunities for better and gainful employment.
If only the governor will help them, too.
