Mike Rowe: America is learning critical lesson about work from coronavirus shutdown
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The coronavirus pandemic has revealed that there is no such thing as a "nonessential" worker, TV host and author Mike Rowe said Thursday.
In an interview on the "Fox News Rundown" podcast with host Lisa Brady, Rowe said that while America is witnessing the importance of workers who are classified as "essential," workers who have lost their jobs due to the health crisis are just as important because unemployment during this time has had such a "disastrous impact" on the U.S. economy that you "can't call them nonessential."
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The number of Americans seeking unemployment benefits jumped by 5.25 million last week. The figure brings total claims over a four-week period to nearly 22 million workers -- effectively erasing the entirety of labor market gains since the 2008 financial crisis.
Prior to the pandemic, the largest number of Americans to seek jobless aid in a four-week stretch was 2.7 million in the fall of 1982. With a labor force of approximately 162 million people, that brings the unemployment rate in America close to 13 percent.
{{#rendered}} {{/rendered}}Rowe told Brady he was most worried about the nation getting stuck in a "bad pattern" when doors are allowed to open once more and about those who have never really thought entrepreneurially or mastered a useful skill.
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In the future, Rowe -- who has spent much of his work focused on middle America and the working class -- believes jobs and the way Americans work could change.
{{#rendered}} {{/rendered}}"Well, I see it as an extension of the freelance mentality, which I've always been a huge fan of. I've always looked at what I do through the lens of a freelancer and a tradesman," he stated.
"And, I do that because it makes me feel good. It makes me feel in control. It makes me feel like, alright, I have a skill. So, wherever I go, the skill goes with him. And, if I have to, I can find a way to work in my chosen field," Rowe continued.
"You know, that mentality, I think, is really powerful. But I'm sorry to say that that mentality has been well...under attack, really, for decades. People don't look fondly at freelancing anymore," he noted.
{{#rendered}} {{/rendered}}Rowe explained further that people criticize freelance or "gig" work because it comes with a certain amount of risk.
"And, the gig economy is something that a lot of people criticize because it comes with a certain amount of risk and you have to assume that risk in the gig economy," he remarked.
Rowe referenced California's Assembly Bill No. 5 (AB5) -- a controversial labor law that requires the use of a three-prong test to determine employee status and make gig economy workers eligible for benefits. Instead, thousands of independent contractors have said they were put out of work.
{{#rendered}} {{/rendered}}"They want everyone to be an employee, right? And, I understand why they're doing it. They don't want people to be taken advantage of. Or, so goes the argument," he pointed out.
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"But, the more risk you eliminate from the business of earning a living, the more unintended consequences come to bear," Rowe concluded.
{{#rendered}} {{/rendered}}"And, in this case, people stop thinking in terms of eating what they kill, they stop thinking in terms of finding opportunities, and they begin to default to the inertia...[of] showing up, punching a clock, signing a document, getting a check. And, in the way, I think we disassociate and we disconnect from the business of work."
Fox Business' Megan Henney contributed to this report.