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Long COVID, rural broadband and a not-so-happy Valentine’s Day.

Let's do the numbers on the labor shortage

More than 10 million jobs are open in this country. There are a lot of reasons employers are having trouble filling them: Prospective workers want more pay and better benefits, and they might be dealing with school interruptions or lack child care. There’s also the deadly pandemic, which makes some people hesitate to take an in-person job.

One aspect of this shortage you don’t hear about as much: long COVID. Some 30 million working-age Americans have or have had long-term symptoms, making them reduce their hours or go on disability insurance.

“My first reaction was … I can’t imagine this is a big deal because I haven’t seen anyone talk about it,” said the Brookings Institution's Katie Bach, who has been studying these workers. “I was just floored by how large the effect could be under pretty conservative assumptions.”

When Bach added up all the lost hours from workers who dropped out or cut back because of long COVID, she found the total was equivalent to about 1.6 million full-timers. A separate study on COVID deaths and excess deaths indirectly caused by the pandemic (crowded hospitals, skipped doctor visits, etc.) found about 300,000 people lost to the labor force. Taken together, you’re looking at nearly 2 million missing workers.

It’s not going to solve the shortage on its own, but doing the numbers on long COVID, Bach told us, could help policymakers and public health officials better understand the problem.

A circular problem

In the past year, the federal government has rolled out new subsidies to help low-income Americans get online. But tens of millions of them don’t know about it.

The Federal Communications Commission’s Affordable Connectivity Program gives qualifying households $30 per month for broadband service, $75 for people living on tribal lands. Discounts on equipment too. About 7 million households are taking advantage of the program, but research firm BroadbandNow found that some 30 million more could if they knew about it.

Without the internet, a lot of these folks are hard to contact. In Oklahoma, ads and nonprofit outreach have boosted enrollment, but there’s another problem: inadequate broadband infrastructure. The FCC is offering something like half off internet access, but many rural areas and reservations aren’t wired up for it in the first place.

“There’s no internet available,” said E.J. John with the American Indian Policy Institute. “So even if there’s an individual subsidy, you can’t take advantage of it.”

Quote of the day

“If you take a young, Black child out, and they see a Black pilot or they see a Black engineer, they have a different perception.”

— Albert Glenn, a retired FedEx pilot who runs the nonprofit Luke Weathers Flight Academy in Mississippi. The flight school, named after a Tuskegee Airman who was the first Black air traffic controller, has a mission to diversify cockpits around the country.

Sometimes, it's about the marketing you don't do

Valentine’s Day is in three weeks, and Axios notes many brands are letting their customers opt out of marketing emails around the holiday. Other companies have done the same thing around Mother’s Day and Father’s Day, which can be painful for some. These companies are betting that showing empathy for customers will build trust and bring back more shoppers after the chocolates and greeting cards are sold out.

We’re with you every step of the way.

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