The definition of a frontline worker has expanded during the pandemic to include jobs that, in normal times, were taken for granted.
Take grocery store employees, for example. As one headline put it, they kept Americans alive during the pandemic. Workers felt the strain as panic buyers picked stores clean in the early stages of stay-at-home orders, disrupting supply chains.
But keeping America fed required that these workers put themselves at risk.
"It's definitely eye-opening," says a Kroger cashier in West Virginia.
— NPR (@NPR) April 5, 2020
"Because people are now saying: 'Oh, my God, these people [working at grocery stores] deserve hazard pay.' But these are the same people who say we don't deserve $15 an hour."https://t.co/T6Jlcv5qG1
Author Benjamin Lorr was already investigating what he calls the “dark miracle” of the modern grocery store when the pandemic struck, talking with the people who keep the supply chain humming, and the tactics that drive our purchases.
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Benjamin Lorr, author of "The Secret Life of Groceries: The Dark Miracle of the American Supermarket” (@BenjaminLorr)
