By Robert Reich
You
heard me right. The National Republican Congressional Committee issued a statement last
week claiming that Chipotle’s recent decision to raise prices on their burritos
and other menu products by about 4 percent was caused by Democrats.
“Democrats’
socialist stimulus bill caused a labor shortage and now burrito lovers
everywhere are footing the bill,” according to NRCC spokesperson Mike Berg.
Republicans
have finally found an issue to run on in the 2022 midterm elections.
Apparently, Dr. Seuss and Mr. Potato Head weren’t getting enough traction.
The
Republican’s tortured logic is that the unemployment benefits in the American
Survival Act have caused workers to stay home rather than seek employment,
resulting in labor shortages that have forced employers like Chipotle to
increase wages, which has required them to raise their prices.
Hence, Chipotle’s more expensive burrito.
This
isn’t just loony economics. It’s dangerously loony economics because it might
be believed, leading to all sorts to stupid public policies.
Start
with the notion that $300 per week in federal unemployment benefits is keeping
Americans from working.
Since
fewer than 30 percent of jobless workers qualify for state unemployment
benefits, the claim is that legions of workers have chosen to become couch
potatoes and collect $15,000 a year rather than get a job.
I
challenge one Republican lawmaker to live on $15,000 a year.
In
fact, evidence suggests
that workers are holding back from reentering the job market because they don’t
have childcare or are still concerned about their health during the pandemic.
Besides,
if employers want additional workers, they can do what they necessarily do for
anything they want more of but can’t obtain at its current price – pay more.
It’s
called capitalism. Republicans should bone up on it.
When
Chipotle wanted to attract more workers, it raised its average wage to $15 an
hour. That comes to around $30,000 a year per worker – still too little to live
on but double the federal unemployment benefit.
Oh,
and there’s no reason to suppose this wage hike forced Chipotle to raise the
prices of its borritos. The company had other options.
Chipotle’s
executives are among the best paid in America. Its CEO, Brian Niccol, raked in $38 million last year–
which happens to be 2,898 times more than the typical Chipotle employee earned.
All of Chipotle’s top executives got whopping pay increases.
So
it would have been possible for Chipotle to avoid raising its burrito prices by
– dare I say? – paying its executives less. But Chipotle decided otherwise.
By
the way, I keep hearing Republican lawmakers say the GOP is the “party of the
working class.” If that’s so, the Republican Party ought to celebrate when
hourly workers get a raise instead of howling about it.
Everyone ought
to celebrate when those at the bottom get higher wages.
The
typical American worker hasn’t had a real raise in four decades. Income
inequality is out of control. Wealth inequality is into the stratosphere (where
Jeff Bezos is heading, apparently).
If
wages at the bottom rise because employers need to pay more to get the workers
they need, that’s not a problem. It’s a victory.
Instead
of complaining about a so-called “labor shortage,” Republicans ought to be
complaining about the shortage of jobs paying a living wage.
But
don’t hold your breath, or your guacamole.
Robert Reich's latest book is
"THE SYSTEM: Who Rigged It, How To Fix It." He is Chancellor's
Professor of Public Policy at the University of California at Berkeley and
Senior Fellow at the Blum Center. He served as Secretary of Labor in the
Clinton administration, for which Time Magazine named him one of the 10 most
effective cabinet secretaries of the twentieth century. He has written 17 other
books, including the best sellers "Aftershock," "The Work of
Nations," "Beyond Outrage," and "The Common Good." He
is a founding editor of the American Prospect magazine, founder of Inequality
Media, a member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, and co-creator of
the award-winning documentaries "Inequality For All," streaming on
YouTube, and "Saving Capitalism," now streaming on Netflix.