On a day when the unemployment rate is at 10.2%, 25% of 18-24 year olds said they contemplated suicide, and the U.S. has reported at least 1470 deaths from COVID the previous day, the US Congress is no closer to passing legislation to restart the UBI or help anyone who isn’t rich. Joe Biden has made it official, selecting Kamala Harris as his running mate. Non-donors have to wonder what they will get out of any plausible next presidential administration- More Trump or Less Trump seem to be the only clear offerings. Speaking of the Big Orange Turd, he has admitted to starving the US Postal Service in order to further interfere with the election in November.
Locally, the unemployment rate is estimated at 16% in Chicago, rents are going up, polluting manufacturers are heading to less white and affluent areas, and the Lightfoot Administration is still treating the Loop and River north as moated castles.
About 4,000 UIC workers are planning to strike for a $15 minimum wage and PPE, reports Claire Procter in the Sun-Times.
#55, one of the best loved Harold’s Chicken shops in the city has closed permanently after its landlord raised the rent by 40% in a recession. As Jamie Nesbitt Golden writes for Block Club Chicago, Percy Billings, the owner of the Harold’s, moved his store into 100 W 87th street at the Chatham Ridge Shopping Center in 1992. From the Tribune “They went up on my rent,” said Percy Billings, 78, owner of Harold’s #55. “They wanted me to pay $10,000 plus a percentage and sign a five year lease.” The rent was $7,000 per month, he said. “We tried to work with them, but they didn’t give me no notice so I moved out.” As of posting, this writer’s best guess at the landlord: Transwestern Real Estate Services, whose motto is “Better is Bigger”.
Sarah Vowell has an opinion piece in the New York Times that is ostensibly about a group of current political leaders who all went to public universities. But the article’s great merit is its implicit critique of American elitism and inequality and praise of public education. Vowell presents the public university as a great leveler, a hothouse of democracy, and an increasingly rare thing in the USA, a provider of “a fair chance at a decent life”.