PremiumCovid inequality calls for a lot more, and odd acts of generosity alone won’t make a difference, at least not on the scale required. Nor will the philanthropy of billionaires be enough, though that’s welcome too. What’s needed is a policy response on our behalf. We need collective action
“Don’t spend it all in one place," was the advice a bartender at Stumble Inn Bar & Grill in New Hampshire, US, got after receiving a tip of the financial kind from a customer who’d had a couple of drinks and snacks. It was $16,000 on a tab of about $38. The restaurant said the money would be split among its bar and kitchen staff while the tipper chose to stay anonymous. In the absence of indications to the contrary, we can put it down to corona compassion. For much too long has one lot seen its wealth increase even as another had its earnings squeezed. On-site workers have been hit especially hard by the covid pandemic.
Eye-popping tips are a pre-pandemic thing, no doubt, and so too in India. In 2016, after high-value currency notes were scrapped overnight, for example, we saw a rash of cash being turned over in lump sums to the poor. It happens in normal times, too. But covid inequality calls for a lot more, and odd acts of generosity alone won’t make a difference, at least not on the scale required. Nor will the philanthropy of billionaires be enough, though that’s welcome too. What’s needed is a policy response on our behalf. We need collective action.
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