Clap all you like now, but workers with meaningful jobs deserve to be valued in a post-coronavirus economy too
The coronavirus recession has laid bare how illogically the U.S. labor market values work that matters.
In the United States, as elsewhere, citizens have been extolling the role of essential workers – such as nurses, grocery suppliers and delivery drivers – by, for example, rewarding them with nightly claps. Yet many of these employees receive low pay and few protections, suggesting a different appreciation of their worth in the market.
But in highlighting this disconnect, perhaps the crisis has also provided an opportunity to reimagine an economy that values jobs for something more than just wealth creation: meaningfulness.
A moral market?
Meaningfulness has to do with how much one’s work matters in a moral sense, which is not always signified by how much money a job pays. It often rela...