This is a pretty mask-off (excuse the pun) moment in your argument. So to protect small businesses we shouldn't have paid people at all or closed down at any point and we'd have more than a million dead Americans but at least workers would still be as expendable?

You don't get to call us "essential workers" and treat us like shit. This is the first time in my living memory McDonald's and co raised their starting wages. Line cooks were the most impacted and it was the most dangerous job last year. You want that to be worse, for small businesses to survive?

I can reincorporate "Drekk Design Studio", the line cook can't re-enter his mortal coil. We should have paid everyone every month of the pandemic and enforced these public health measures like Germany (1 in 10 infected vs the US 1 in 3).