Pay People for Their Work!
Why I’m angry about the same d*&! issues in the American South and the Marvel Comics Universe.
MDC’s State of the South is storytelling and analysis of regional strengths and system failures. We envision a South where all people thrive. The 2021 series will focus on how the COVID-19 pandemic, racial injustice, and climate change demand commitments that make us all safer, resilient, and more free. Today’s piece is from MDC program director, Jenna Bryant.
I wanted to come up with a fancy title for this post, but let’s just be clear: in our society, we don’t pay workers for the value they add to our lives. We have such a warped sense of community that we can’t even make up a world where we value the workers that provide us with the services, resources, and products we use daily. We. Actually. Can’t. Imagine. It.
Take, for instance, the newest installment in the Marvel Cinematic Universe (MCU), The Falcon and The Winter Soldier television series. The series follows Sam Wilson, the Falcon, and James “Bucky” Barnes, the Winter Soldier, six months after the events of Avengers: Endgame movie.
Spoiler Alert: There is no economic inclusion in the MCU. Also, I’m actually spoiling The Falcon and The Winter Soldier and Avengers: Endgame.
In the first two episodes of the series, we learn that Sam’s family fishing business is underwater. Sam’s sister, Sarah, needs another business loan to stay afloat, but is afraid she is too overextended. Sam tells her not to worry. He will help her out because he’s an Avenger. He helped save the world; surely, he can co-sign a loan. Sam believes his fame and hard work will guarantee approval. Unfortunately, Sam disappeared when Thanos snapped 50 percent of the population into oblivion; he doesn’t have any reported income for the last five years. The bank denies his loan application.
Turns out, the Avengers did not get paid for their Saving-the-World services They actually had side jobs to make money and some of those jobs were not legal. (I’m looking at you, Hawkeye!)
Sam and the rest of the Avengers are saving us from the big three — Aliens, Androids, and Wizards — without any compensation. They also are not about to support their family members and loved ones back home. In Sam’s case, he cannot ease the stress and financial insecurity faced by his sister and her kids back in Louisiana.
You know who did make money from saving the world? Tony Stark, aka Iron Man. (Tony Stark is the Jeff Bezos of the MCU.) I do not like speaking ill of the fictional dead, but Tony got his money by extracting labor from his fellow Avengers.’ He may have funded all the equipment (i.e., special suits, tech, planes, and Captain America’s new shield) and the fancy headquarters, but that came from government contracts for his defense tech, which his colleagues often tested while in battle. Tony Stark continued to make money, while military veterans like Sam, Bucky, and the rest of the Avengers continued to save the world for free.[1] Even in a fictional universe, we have a limited imagination of economic inclusion. And who is most affected by this? As is in the real world, it’s Black women. Sam and Sarah, Black business owners, can barely afford to stay in business; they are the working poor of the MCU, and that place has superheroes, but it doesn’t have a universal way to provide financial security during global crises.
Spoiler Alert: We’ve got economic inclusion troubles in the real world, too
This brings me to my favorite real-world drama that I watched last week: a State of the South webinar featuring MDC board member, Bill Spriggs, Chief Economist at the AFL-CIO, and an economics professor at the illustrious Howard University, the greatest school on Earth. [2] Unlike most economists, Dr. Spriggs thinks intensely about race and economics, and ultimately, the social contract between workers, employers, and government.
Dr. Spriggs talks about how economists model discrimination and differences in income. In economics, discrimination is modeled as an aberration, not part of how our society practices capitalism and employment. According to many economists, income differences are based on skill (codeword: formal postsecondary education and credentials). And if discrimination exists, it happens before people obtain employment. Thus, economists often believe that bias is most present in education and skill acquisition, which means those who make less or do not get paid are people with the least formal education. Except for Tony Stark, Bruce Banner, Carol Danvers, T’Challa, Shuri, and Dr. Strange, most of the 28 Avengers in the MCU do not have a formal postsecondary education. They are all intelligent and experienced, but are mainly appreciated due to their physicality, which…. (Now I am looking at you, Nick Fury! You hired a team of people to keep the world safe, but you forgot to have them fill out a W-2 form.) I’m sure you can come up with a list of folks who have this skill/pay mismatch here in the real world.
Spriggs highlights one of the core tenets of labor economics: the freedom to contract, or the ability to choose between leisure and working. In essence, we will enter into a contract to work when presented with a wage equal to the value of our work. However, the freedom to contract does not consider the discrimination and inequities that many people face because of the identities or the desperation or stress one feels because of their familial responsibilities. Think of the single parent who must take a minimum wage job to put food on the table. Or the Avengers who can save the world or die with the rest of us. There is little freedom when the alternative is death.
In an ideal world, we would not have low-wage jobs. The freedom to contract would be an actual choice for workers because they would have the economic stability and income support to hold out for the right job for them and their family. More importantly, we would improve worker protections for those that are essential during a crisis. As we have seen in some industries during the Coronavirus pandemic, workers would receive premium pay during a crisis that recognizes the risk essentials workers face trying to make sure the rest of us are safe, fed, and have our basic needs met. In this ideal world, all grocery store cashiers, food service workers, public transportation workers, and cleaning and sanitation workers would receive fair and substantive hazard pay with increased health benefits in case they were to get sick.
The MCU is a fictional world that has dreamed up new tech, strong metals, and the most villainous villains. But our understanding of equity and fair labor practices is so limited that even in this fictional setting, we don’t have a world where we value people for work and pay them accordingly. We cannot think of ways to make our neighbors, who provide us with the essentials we need, financially stable. Not even in the MCU can we imagine an economically inclusive world for our essential workers. I want us to do better in the real world — and the fictional ones, for that matter! Like Spriggs said about the South “if ‘working poor’ is your model, you can’t solve poverty.” We need to adopt a different model — one that doesn’t let the precarity that comes with low-wages make both families and the broader economy less stable. If we want a South where all people thrive, we need a social contract that values everyone’s contributions in tangible ways.
[1] Since Captain America, Steve Rogers remained with the government, and he likely was provided with a great pension. Similarly, James “Rhodey” Rhodes is still active military and a high-ranking government official. Neither Steve nor Rhodey disappeared during the “Blip.”
[2] The author of this post is an alum of Howard University. Hamptonites, don’t come for me! We’re the real HU!
