Labor Day lost its meaning to many Americans long ago. The holiday created to celebrate workers and their fight for safe working conditions and enough pay to feed their families is now more commonly seen as an occasion that marks the end of summer and the start of school.
Today’s social and economic reality imbues this Labor Day with a new sense of gravity and urgency. The pandemic’s precipitous and prolonged impact on workers, coupled with the nation’s reckoning with racial injustice, are an eerie reflection of the holiday’s origins. Too many people—particularly the poor, a disproportionate number of Black Americans, and recent immigrants—are working for meager wages, often in unhealthy conditions. Meanwhile, unemployment continues at distressing levels, with about 30 million people out of work.