Sitcoms are an underrated way of portraying the economic challenges faced by average people. “Atlanta” shows the travails of working-class black Americans navigating a world of hassle, insecurity and poverty. The Canadian program “Kim’s Convenience” depicts immigrant small-business owners and their second-generation children off to a rocky start on their rise into the middle class. Broad economic trends form the backdrop to both of shows -- the loss of dependable manufacturing jobs, the geographic concentration of economic opportunity, immigration, prejudice and social mobility. But perhaps no show captures the reality of the modern American workplace as well as NBC’s “Superstore.”
The premise of “Superstore” is charmingly simple -- the misadventures of the employees of a big-box discount store called Cloud 9 (a fictional analog of Walmart). They represent a diverse cross-section of the American populace: young, old, black, white, Asian, Hispanic. One is disabled, one is an unauthorized immigrant, one is homeless, another is a teenage mom. They’re not the burly hard-hat-wearing men that one might associate with the term “working class.” But perhaps that stereotype ought to change because retail workers have outnumbered manufacturing workers in the U.S. since 2003:
