The shocking disconnect between a thriving U.S. investor economy and its millions of unemployed is a recipe for even worse social unrest.
Don’t blame Lisa Scott, a 43-year-old certified nursing assistant who lives in the Oxford Circle section of Philadelphia, for not celebrating last week as the Standard & Poor’s 500 index soared to yet another record high, as Wall Street’s unbelievable summer stretches into a new month.
On Wednesday afternoon, as the Dow was rising yet another 454 points, Scott – who hasn’t worked since the coronavirus turned her world upside down in March – was far too busy worrying why Pennsylvania still hasn’t processed her unemployment claim, whether her landlord will keep allowing her to pay whatever rent she can and how she’d be able to seek new work with her 12-year-old at home for virtual schooling.
“I think it’s all bull—-, pardon my language,” Scott told me when I asked her about the stock market soaring even as nearly 30 million Americans, that’s one in every five workers, continues to receive the unemployment benefits she’s still struggling to obtain. Like many in her shoes, the mother of six is losing faith in the system.
“I am an essential worker – I am needed, and look how they’re doing me,” Scott told me.