Respectfully, I believe you have it backwards and the issue needing correcting is this (quoted from article).
"Few employers have compensated extra for on-site work amid the health crisis. A recent survey by the Economic Policy Institute found that fewer than a third of people who had to leave their homes to work during the pandemic received additional pay or benefits. As U.S. coronavirus cases persist and some states are even backtracking their reopening plans, workers have flooded social media with calls for hazard pay."
The concern is entirely about people being paid more than their jobs to stay home. In some conversations I've had with people, there's an attitude that staying at home is just a giant vacation that they'd like to go on as long as possible.
It's an understandable position as well for anybody who won't see much of an impact from the economic side effects. When people begin asking to extend the stay-at-home-pay program, there are a lot of people who will support the idea of getting paid excessively to stay home and anyone who tries to correct that fiscally unsustainable situation is going to be made out to be the bad guy.
Hazard pay for essential workers makes complete sense.
It's the excessive unemployment for people to stay home that's the problem. For a bunch of people, it's a giant vacation. For others who are working through all of this, they are strained, stressed out, worried about getting sick and their nerves are shot.
All in for hazard pay, but fix the unemployment problem. It's completely out of balance.
I guess what I’m saying is, it’s not just hazard pay. So many people in this economy aren’t paid a living wage to begin with.
In an ideal world I would agree with you. In the world we live in my suspicion is that (not saying this is you specifically) calls to “balance” “excessive” (imho a case can be made for unemployment being higher than ones previous pay - parents for example have to home school now in addition to work - they paid taxes for schools but e kids can’t attend them. One theoretical.) unemployment right now are really just political cover for eliminating pandemic-related financial support for citizens from the federal government entirely.
