will the idea of "essential workers" change the national discourse?

[SonomaPatientsCoop]

We are living in strange times. Where many of better paid and respected jobs- from tech workers to lawyers have little to no work. While many of the lowest paid...and often disparaged jobs - grocery store workers, restaurant workers, sanitation engineers, warehouse workers. delivery drivers, bank tellers, county/state employees who fill pot holes, or maintain other infrastructure, the people who pick and package the fruit and vegetables we rely on.... are now deemed crucial to our societies survival.

Will this last past the pandemic? Will it change how, we as a society, deal with and treat a large segment of our society? Or will we just return to how things were?

[american dream]

We are living in strange times. Where many of better paid and respected jobs- from tech workers to lawyers have little to no work. While many of the lowest paid...and often disparaged jobs - grocery store workers, restaurant workers, sanitation engineers, warehouse workers. delivery drivers, bank tellers, county/state employees who fill pot holes, or maintain other infrastructure, the people who pick and package the fruit and vegetables we rely on.... are now deemed crucial to our societies survival. Will this last past the pandemic? Will it change how, we as a society, deal with and treat a large segment of our society? Or will we just return to how things were?

Well-spoken. What you describe correlates to what happened when the Black (Bubonic) Plague overran Europe, during and after which the peasants, the lowly serfs had the needed survival skills, unlike the priests and lords who couldn't take care of their own needs, let alone anyone else's. It broke the rigid Feudal system and was the harbinger of the Renaissance, very good results, although, of course, oppression continued in many forms - didn't end the Inquisition, for instance..