Remember how Republicans like Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell were worried about the “unemployment on steroids” aspect of the stimulus package? You know—the one thing that might help ease some of the financial burden of the historic number of people hitting the unemployment rolls as a result of the terrible COVID-19 pandemic response of the Republican administration in the White House?
It turns out that the Republican Party was on to something. NPR received well-deserved blowback for their profile of an eastern Kentucky coffee shop owner who lamented the fact that the workforce pool around her was making more money on unemployment. It turns out paying people subsistence wages means that you don’t have much of a claim to their labor. Despite the fact that Donald Trump and the Republican Party have done nothing over the past few decades to create more opportunities for Americans to pursue happiness, this week the do-nothing Republican Party gets another tone deaf, analysis-free profile of how difficult it is to be a small business owner from The Wall Street Journal.