Restaurants Need a Bigger Menu of Government Aid
Could the government’s pandemic-relief measures be setting up another period of slow employment growth?
The interior of Adam Ozimek’s 15,000-square-foot restaurant/bowling alley/video arcade.
Courtesy Adam Ozimek
The restaurant and entertainment industry was hit hard by both the Covid recession and the federal government’s response to it. The pandemic kept customers away, and now employees are being kept away by the enhanced unemployment benefits included in President Joe Biden’s $1.9 trillion American Rescue Plan.
Or so some restauranteurs and economists say. Adam Ozimek happens to be both: He is chief economist at Upwork, a marketplace for gig-economy workers, and he owns Decades, a bar and grill (with an attached bowling alley and video arcade) in Lancaster, Pa.