Robert Reich on unemployment during this public health crisis - Business Insider

Oh, well, huge numbers of people. Well, first of all, healthcare workers. I've been in touch with healthcare workers around the country and I hear from healthcare workers all over that they are not getting the masks and protective gear they need, that they are every day exposing themselves to this virus. They're not even getting the tests.

So this is I think morally repugnant. I want just to be completely candid about my own feelings about this, not that it's going to change anything. But hopefully, when this is all over, if it's all over, we'll take a deep breath and make some reforms in our system.But what are the policies? I mean it's a terrible situation either way.

I mean, what we really need, Sara, is a minimum basic income and we need Medicare for all. And if we don't understand from this horrible experience, I mean it really is a nightmare for huge numbers of Americans. Well, if we don't get that, then shame on us. I mean we now — we came out of World War II and we understood that there were a lot of things we needed to do for ourselves as a country.

But this is not fundamentally an economic crisis. This is a public health crisis. The economic crisis is because we are trying to do something about the public health crisis and that is something wise, sending people home. We don't want to get jobs back right away. We want actually to people to be sheltered at home. We don't want to stimulate the economy.

I think the basic contours of the American economy may shift somewhat. I don't expect a gigantic shift, but I do expect some changes in, particularly the ways in which we are accustomed to interact. There will be less personal interaction. The service sector of the economy that is dependent on a lot of direct service from person to person, I think is going to undergo some changes as well.

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