Newsweek Discovers Nurses Need... Two Jobs to Live?
Yes, Newsweek, in a stunning display of deep journalistic insight, has 'discovered' that healthcare heroes are working themselves to death, literally and figuratively, to pay the bills. The article, based on a survey from Intuit, frames this as a new, unfortunate trend. What they conveniently omit is the decades-long corporate assault on wages, the gutting of unions, and the systematic
underfunding of essential services while corporate profits and executive salaries soar. The 'gig economy' isn't a lifestyle choice for nurses; it's a desperate necessity imposed by a system designed to extract maximum labor for minimum pay. (Remember when healthcare workers were 'essential' and deserved a bonus? Now they just deserve more shifts.) Perhaps Newsweek will next report that water is
wet, or that politicians who take millions from corporate PACs tend to vote for corporate interests. One might wonder if the 'financial need' of everyday Americans registers with the same urgency as the need to send billions in taxpayer dollars to foreign conflicts, (aid packages that often pass Congress with bipartisan glee, irrespective of domestic crises). How many side hustles would it take
for a nurse to afford the F-35 fighter jets we keep gifting abroad?