Comment by danaris

But lots of people were losing their jobs and put out of their homes during the pandemic.

Prices rose sharply for everyone. We got roughly $2000 of individual stimulus payments over the course of ~2 years. Doesn't pay for a hell of a lot over that span.

And the increases in real wages were very uneven. If you happened to be one of the lucky ones whose wages were increased, then that's great—but many, many people's stayed the same at best. And, again, many people were fired, or quit because the alternative was putting themselves in constant physical danger plus being screamed at by people who value their own minor convenience over your life.

And as someone with a family member who was on unemployment after losing their job in the summer of 2020, if we had had to rely on it to pay the bills, regardless of how long it lasted, we would have been screwed. (And that's ignoring all the hoops they had to go through just to get and keep it.)

What could the government have done that wouldn't lead to (as much) backlash[0] from ordinary people? Well, how about

- Provide stimulus that actually keeps people afloat over a long period, rather than just tossing $2000 at them and declaring that should be enough

- Provide complete and effective PPE for everyone who has to be working during the lockdowns

- Put in place robust protections for the health and safety of both those workers (ie, protection against employers who want you to endanger yourself) and everyone else (ie, mandating masks in enclosed public spaces, mandating vaccines, strengthening requirements for good ventilation, etc)

In general, if the government were not hamstrung by having roughly half its legislators actively seeking to make government less effective to justify dismantling it and privatizing everything, it would be able to provide for its people in a more compassionate and comprehensive way.

[0] And yes; I'm aware there would be backlash against these things from right-wing science deniers. They were never a majority.