There is no “such thing as a nonessential worker” when it comes to the economy, television host Mike Rowe said as businesses shutter during the coronavirus pandemic.
“There’s this fascinating conversation going on, on your network and all the networks, where we are making a distinction between the essential workers and nonessential workers,” Rowe told Dana Perino on her Fox News show Tuesday. “Not to oversell it, but there’s something tricky with the language going on here, because with regard to an economy, I don’t think there is any such thing as a nonessential worker.”
He added, “You start pulling on jobs and tugging on careers over here and over there, the whole thing will bunch up in a weird way. Now, essential workers do exist, but in my mind, they exist more in the old Dirty Jobs modality where you look at first responders and garbagemen and plumbers and pipe fitters, and so, I just wanted to make a point that when we talk about the economy, all work is essential,” Rowe said, referring to his former Discovery Channel show Dirty Jobs.
Worker claims for unemployment benefits rose to a record 6.6 million last week, the Labor Department reported Thursday, as the coronavirus continues to spread. To alleviate the short-term pressures of unemployment, Congress authorized relief tax rebates of $1,200 per adult and also boosted unemployment benefits by $600 a week.
