The RESTAURANTS Act Is the Wrong Way to Save the Restaurant Industry
Workers in the restaurant industry are in dire straits all across the country. But the RESTAURANTS Act proposed in Congress is a $120 billion handout to industry owners with no substantive guarantees for the workers who are suffering immensely right now. We can’t trust celebrity chefs and CEOs with trickle-down relief.
Somewhere between two and three million servers, cooks, hosts, and dishwashers remain unemployed due to COVID-19. (Dolapo Falola / Flickr)
On December 27, President Donald Trump signed a new $900 billion coronavirus relief bill that includes $600 individual stimulus checks, $300 weekly unemployment benefits extended through March, $284 billion for more Paycheck Protection Program (PPP) business loans, $82 billion in school funding, $45 billion to aviation and transportation, and $15 billion for failing entertainment venues. Absent, however, is any targeted relief to another struggling industry: restaurants. And the restaurant lobby is not happy.
The Independent Restaurant Coalition (IRC) slammed the bill for falling “woefully short.” The IRC, an up-and-coming rival to the older National Restaurant Association (NRA), warned that “restaurants and bars will continue to close without additional relief this winter, leaving millions more out of work.”
The IRC is right to sound the alarm. Mismanaged at every level of US government, the pandemic is now deadlier than ever. Cities and states have introduced new, necessary restrictions on indoor dining, and cold weather is making most outdoor dining impossible. The upshot is an existential crisis in food service. A hundred thousand restaurants have already gone out of business due to COVID. Somewhere between two and three million servers, cooks, hosts, and dishwashers remain unemployed.
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