August 14, 2020

Raw Data: Blue Collar Wages During the COVID-19 Pandemic

Here’s something you might not have seen before: average earnings of blue collar workers over the past few months. Thanks to the rescue bills—primarily the CARES Act—average pay for blue collar workers has gone up 4 percent since February:

And what are people doing with this extra money? Putting it in the bank and then drawing it down:

Workers drew down $3 trillion in savings in May and June. At this rate, the extra savings generated by the CARES Act will be gone by the end of August. September is going to be a very grim month for a lot of people if Congress doesn’t get itself back in session quickly and pass another rescue bill. Because it’s a dead certainty that COVID-19 won’t be gone by then.

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WE CAME UP SHORT.

We just wrapped up a shorter-than-normal, urgent-as-ever fundraising drive and we came up about $45,000 short of our $300,000 goal.

That means we're going to have upwards of $350,000, maybe more, to raise in online donations between now and June 30, when our fiscal year ends and we have to get to break-even. And even though there's zero cushion to miss the mark, we won't be all that in your face about our fundraising again until June.

So we urgently need this specific ask, what you're reading right now, to start bringing in more donations than it ever has. The reality, for these next few months and next few years, is that we have to start finding ways to grow our online supporter base in a big way—and we're optimistic we can keep making real headway by being real with you about this.

Because the bottom line: Corporations and powerful people with deep pockets will never sustain the type of journalism Mother Jones exists to do. The only investors who won’t let independent, investigative journalism down are the people who actually care about its future—you.

And we hope you might consider pitching in before moving on to whatever it is you're about to do next. We really need to see if we'll be able to raise more with this real estate on a daily basis than we have been, so we're hoping to see a promising start.

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