Improve Wages And Benefits–Or Die. There’s nothing the Delaware Restaurant Association can do about it:
Nearly three years since the coronavirus pandemic upended the labor market, restaurants, bars, hotels and casinos remain short-staffed, with nearly 2 million unfilled openings. The leisure and hospitality industry, which before the pandemic accounted for much of the country’s job growth, is still short roughly 500,000 employees from 2020 levels, even as many other sectors have recovered.
But these workers didn’t disappear. A lot of them, like McGrath, who were laid off early in the pandemic, moved to behind-the-scenes office work where they are more likely to have increased flexibility, stability and often better pay.
The job sectorshift has been most pronounced in the United States, where 20 million Americans suddenly lost their jobs in early 2020. Unlike many European countries, which helped workers stay on the job by subsidizing their wages, the United States took a different approach, offering additional unemployment benefits once people were out of work. Employers cut 14 percent of the U.S. workforce in the first month of the pandemic, with many of those losses concentrated in restaurants, hotels, child-care centers and other service employers.
William Spriggs, a labor economist who was originally critical of the mass layoffs in the United States, now says the shake-up may have ultimately encouraged service workers to look beyond low-wage jobs.
“This has been a good evolution — it has raised wages and changed the structure of the labor market in a deep, profound way,” said Spriggs, chief economist for the AFL-CIO. “Workers who were trapped in low-wage jobs were able to escape by switching to higher-paying industries.”
Indeed, federal data shows that any worker who switches jobs generally gets higher pay increases — an annual increase of about 7.7 percent, as of December — compared to 5.5 percent for employees who stay put.
The Man Behind ‘Died Suddenly’, The Newest RWNJ Anti-Vax Conspiracy Theory:
Indeed, in the last two months, every time a celebrity dies—from former NFL player Ahmaad Galloway to Lisa Marie Presley—adherents of this theory have swarmed social media to blame the shots. Despite no evidence that such a correlation exists, this myth is remarkably persistent, especially since the November 2022 release of a slickly produced documentary called Died Suddenly, which baselessly claims that many people who take the vaccines develop potentially fatal blood clots.
The 16 million people who have watched the film Died Suddenly on the far-right platform Rumble may have been expecting more of what they saw on social media: titillating speculation about Covid vaccines’ role in celebrity deaths. Yet viewers of Died Suddenly encounter much more than just a tired and repeatedly discredited strain of medical misinformation. Its premise is that the vaccines are a tool of global elites who want to “depopulate” the world—a variation on the “Great Reset” narrative that “globalists” like George Soros and Bill Gates orchestrated the pandemic in order to reprogram people to accept a new age of Marxism. This conspiracy theory gained traction in neo-Nazi and white nationalist groups, which are increasingly intermingling with the anti-vaccine movement.
One of the leaders in combining these two movements is Stew Peters, the 42-year-old producer of Died Suddenly. Although his name may not be as well-known as Alex Jones or Robert F. Kennedy, Jr., his influence is considerable. He didn’t start out as an anti-vaccine crusader. Rather, Peters launched his far-right media career several years ago, when he began posting videos of himself monologuing about his work as a bounty hunter in Minneapolis. Imran Ahmed, founder and CEO of the Center for Countering Digital Hate, suggests that Peters has discovered that vaccine skepticism is a powerful way to mobilize new followers. “This is a guy from the far right who sees an opportunity to weaponize the pandemic, to increase distrust in the government,” he says. “Even among otherwise hostile, non-aligned groups, if they can find a point of mutual interest, they will coalesce around it.”
The Ballooning Spy Satellite Controversy. China claims it’s a weather balloon. Nobody believes them. Rethugs demand that it be shot down. Just one problem:
Republican lawmakers pounced on the balloon incident, casting Biden – who has largely preserved and at times expanded Trump’s hawkish policies on China – as weak.
Michael McCaul, the Republican chair of the House foreign affairs committee, on Friday demanded to know why the administration had not shot the balloon down, accusing the president of allowing it to pose “a direct and ongoing national security threat to the US homeland”.
A US defense official said earlier that Biden had asked for military options but that the Pentagon believed shooting the object down would put people on the ground at risk from debris.
People in red states, I might add. If you’re gonna spy, and everybody does, aren’t spy balloons somewhat–archaic?
One More Reason To Root For Jalen Hurts:
Jalen Hurts borrowed an apron last summer, stepped behind the grill at the FoodChasers Kitchen, and attempted to cook his first cheesesteak. And that’s when the quarterback, who has looked flawless at times this season while guiding the Eagles to the Super Bowl, revealed his shortcomings as a short-order cook.
“He wanted to put mozzarella on it,” said Maya Johnstone, who owns the Elkins Park restaurant with her twin sister, Kala. “We said, ‘No.’ He’s like, ‘But I like mozzarella.’ This is Philly. You can’t.”
Hurts called an audible, swapped mozzarella for Cooper sharp, and got to work. The cheesesteak also includes fried onions and mayo and has become a menu staple, aptly called the “Jalen Special.”
Hurts was at the restaurant — which the sisters opened in October 2021 after retiring as principals in the Philadelphia School District — to film a Pepsi commercial and his attempt at making a cheesesteak was an added wrinkle after he wandered into the kitchen.
When he left, Hurts pulled the twins aside and told them he would keep supporting them. He posted the commercial onto his Twitter account and tagged the restaurant. He mentioned FoodChasers in October when he was on Monday Night Football’s ManningCast and told the NFL a month later that his Thursday Night Football interview had to be filmed at his favorite spot on Montgomery Avenue, which is about a post route from the Elkins Park regional rail train station.
The quarterback’s seal of approval, the twins said, brought their small business a sizable buzz. But that wasn’t it.
That Pepsi commercial netted them a $10,000 grant. He next connected the twins with Truist Bank, who donated $5,000 to the sisters’ foundation that donates lunches to Philly students. Louisiana Hot Sauce, which recently released a Hurts sauce, now wants to partner with FoodChasers. Hurts even gives the sisters marketing ideas.
There’s lots more. Read this wonderful story.
Wilmington Police Will FINALLY Carry Naloxene. Years after virtually all other first responders have done so. So far, I like this new police chief:
After years of declining to carry the life-saving drug, the Wilmington Police Department announced Tuesday that its nearly 300 officers will begin carrying the opioid overdose-reversing drug naloxone, also known as Narcan.
The Wilmington Police Department’s decision to finally begin carrying naloxone comes less than a month into the leadership of the department’s new chief, Wilfredo Campos. The department spokesperson did not say whether the change of command on Jan. 6 played any role in the choice to start carrying Narcan.
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