{"id":31440,"date":"2021-03-13T12:55:00","date_gmt":"2021-03-13T17:55:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/philip.greenspun.com\/blog\/?p=31440"},"modified":"2021-03-02T16:19:01","modified_gmt":"2021-03-02T21:19:01","slug":"year-2-ac-public-versus-private-sector-jobs","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/philip.greenspun.com\/blog\/2021\/03\/13\/year-2-ac-public-versus-private-sector-jobs\/","title":{"rendered":"Year 2 AC: Public versus private sector jobs"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p>I&#8217;ve been referring to everything that happened prior to March 2020 as &#8220;BC&#8221; (Before Corona, not to be confused with &#8220;BCE&#8221; for years prior to Jesus&#8217;s birth). We&#8217;re just beginning Year 2 &#8220;AC&#8221;, therefore. Public sector workers have been mostly relaxing at home for a year, still drawing full paychecks, e.g., Boston Public School teachers. Should one of these folks fall ill due to COVID-19 or any other cause, he\/she\/ze\/they will be paid via disability insurance.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>What&#8217;s it like in the private sector? A housecleaner I know had to continue working, accepting whatever risk of COVID-19 was entailed, if she wanted to be paid. She&#8217;s around 60 years old and therefore has more age-related COIVD-19 risk than the average public sector worker (many of whom are eligible to retire at 50 or younger). She recently suffered a fall on a narrow staircase in a Beacon Hill home (these structures are fully compliant with all building and safety codes&#8230; of the early 1800s; see <a href=\"http:\/\/realestate.boston.com\/buying\/2019\/11\/11\/luxury-home-week-part-former-convent-beacon-hill-20-5-million\/\">&#8220;For $20.5 million, Beacon Hill town house next to John Kerry&#8221;<\/a> for an example) and broke both radius bones in her forearms. She&#8217;s unable to work, of course, and won&#8217;t be receiving payments from a disability policy. She&#8217;s expected to recover and has a lot of support from family (Brazilian immigrants), but the story made me reflect on the precariousness of a lot of folks&#8217; existence.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>(The teachers aren&#8217;t &#8220;relaxing at home,&#8221; you say, because they have to be present on Zoom for some hours each week? While down in Florida in January, I met a Massachusetts public school system employee nearing full retirement (early 60s). She didn&#8217;t enjoy being on Zoom so she began to use the months of sick leave she&#8217;d accumulated over the years. &#8220;It will run out by next fall,&#8221; she explained, &#8220;but the union says that I&#8217;ll be able to use days from the sick bank until I&#8217;m eligible for maximum retirement benefits in November.&#8221; In other words, she will have been paid in full for 1.5 years without having to get closer to the Massachusetts school than Florida and without having to appear on Zoom.)<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Now that economic opportunities exist only when governors give permission, is it more important than ever to prepare young people for careers as government workers?<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Loosely related, from February 19, 2021 in Waltham, Massachusetts:<\/p>\n\n\n\n<div class=\"wp-block-image\"><figure class=\"aligncenter size-large is-resized\"><a href=\"https:\/\/philip.greenspun.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/03\/2021-02-19-12.33.37-scaled.jpg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/philip.greenspun.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/03\/2021-02-19-12.33.37-1520x1140.jpg\" alt=\"\" class=\"wp-image-31441\" width=\"475\" height=\"356\" srcset=\"https:\/\/philip.greenspun.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/03\/2021-02-19-12.33.37-1520x1140.jpg 1520w, https:\/\/philip.greenspun.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/03\/2021-02-19-12.33.37-1024x768.jpg 1024w, https:\/\/philip.greenspun.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/03\/2021-02-19-12.33.37-300x225.jpg 300w, https:\/\/philip.greenspun.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/03\/2021-02-19-12.33.37-768x576.jpg 768w, https:\/\/philip.greenspun.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/03\/2021-02-19-12.33.37-1536x1152.jpg 1536w, https:\/\/philip.greenspun.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/03\/2021-02-19-12.33.37-2048x1536.jpg 2048w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 475px) 100vw, 475px\" \/><\/a><\/figure><\/div>\n\n\n\n<p>We still have plenty of opioids for anyone who is depressed about losing a private sector job!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>I&#8217;ve been referring to everything that happened prior to March 2020 as &#8220;BC&#8221; (Before Corona, not to be confused with &#8220;BCE&#8221; for years prior to Jesus&#8217;s birth). We&#8217;re [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[33,61,58],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-31440","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-careers","category-coronapanic","category-government"],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v27.2 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/product\/yoast-seo-wordpress\/ -->\n<title>Year 2 AC: Public versus private sector jobs - Philip Greenspun\u2019s Weblog<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/philip.greenspun.com\/blog\/2021\/03\/13\/year-2-ac-public-versus-private-sector-jobs\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Year 2 AC: Public versus private sector jobs - Philip Greenspun\u2019s Weblog\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"I&#8217;ve been referring to everything that happened prior to March 2020 as &#8220;BC&#8221; (Before Corona, not to be confused with &#8220;BCE&#8221; for years prior to Jesus&#8217;s birth). 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