Simone Barron joins the podcast to discuss this month’s policy focus: Technology’s Potential Revealed in the Pandemic. We discuss how innovation changed the landscape of medicine, work, and education and what it means post pandemic.
Simone Barron is a visiting fellow with the Independent Women’s Forum. She’s used her 30+ years of experience working in full-service restaurants to advocate for the industry and its workers. She is the co-founder of the Full Service Workers Alliance, representing restaurant workers in the protection of their freedoms and flexibilities through legislative advocacy. Simone is a Fox Business News contributor and has been published in multiple publications, including the Wall Street Journal and Washington Post. Her educational video for Prager University produced earlier this year on the impacts of minimum wage mandates on the restaurant industry has garnered over 3 million views.
TRANSCRIPT
Beverly Hallberg:
And welcome to She Thinks, a podcast where you’re allowed to think for yourself. I’m your host, Beverly Hallberg and on today’s episode, it’s our IWF policy focus titled Technology’s Potential Revealed in the Pandemic. We’ll discuss how innovation changed the landscape of medicine, work and education, and what this means post-pandemic. Joining us to discuss this as Simone Barron. Simone Barron is a visiting fellow with Independent Women’s Forum. She used her 30 plus years of experience working in full-service restaurants to advocate for the industry and its workers. She is the co-founder of the Full Service Workers Alliance representing restaurant workers and the protection of their freedoms and flexibilities through legislative advocacy.
Simone is a Fox Business news contributor and has been published in multiple publications, including the Wall Street Journal and Washington Post. Her educational video for Prager University produced earlier this year on the impacts of minimum wage mandates on the restaurant industry has garnered over three million views. It is a great video. I encourage you to watch it. Simone, thank you so much for your work on these important issues and for joining us today.
Simone Barron:
Thank you so much for having me. I appreciate it.
Beverly Hallberg:
And we’re going to get into the policy focus and talk about how technology really has helped all of us in the pandemic, but I want to start with that Prager University video. You took on a topic that I think is a hard one, which is explaining why the minimum wage hurts people. When you look at public opinion on paper, it sounds like a great thing to raise the minimum wage, but you’ve seen firsthand in the restaurant industry that it doesn’t always pan out the way that we want. What was the turning point for you to see that the minimum wage, raising it and having mandates doesn’t always help?
Simone Barron:
Well, the turning point for me was losing income. So I think the idea is we see that people are going in and saying, raising the minimum wage is super helpful. It’s a boon for workers. But what you don’t see are sort of the minutiae of the whole idea. You can’t blanket it across industries and just think that it’s all going to be a one size fits all situation. And we saw that with the restaurant industry, with tipped income. And so for me specifically, and for a lot of tipped workers in Seattle where I’m working and where I’m living, we saw a loss of income, and then we eventually saw a loss of jobs and then a loss of restaurants. So it didn’t really work out for tip workers and restaurants specifically.
And we’re seeing across the country, a lot of workers that are stepping up and saying, “Hey, we can make more money than the minimum wage that you’re proposing and that minimum wage law is going to hurt our industry and basically just change the way we work and make us lose our incomes.” And so I made the Prager video to sort of explain to people how a minimum wage increase actually impacts a tipped worker like myself. And a lot of people just they don’t know how we work and how it all works out and so they needed to know. So that was sort of my educational piece on how a restaurant works.
Beverly Hallberg:
Yeah. And I would say I was able to pay my way through college based on being a waitress, so I worked off the tipped industry as well and did waitressing in several different states. Some had a very low wage that was given to me, but the tips made up for it. Some states had a mandate of what it needed to be. I found that those tips just weren’t as high in those areas where there was a mandated wage, so it is really an interesting industry. And I wonder for the people that you worked with, did you find a lot of them were willing to speak up against the minimum wage? I even think of those who just are independent contractors and don’t fit into this nine to five, one size fits all mentality that the federal government often thinks everybody deals with. Did you find other people were willing to speak up?
Simone Barron:
Well, I think it’s interesting too. I mean, of course I’m out here on the West Coast where everything is super duper liberal and people really bought the whole idea of a minimum wage hike, hook, line and sinker. I have to admit, when I first heard about it, I was like, “Oh, great. This is going to be great. I’m going to make $15 an hour plus tips.” And then what happened was it didn’t work out that way because of the economics of the whole situation. So I think people, at least a lot of workers, seem to want to be very altruistic about it and they really believe that this is going to help people, but they just don’t understand that when the real world implications of applying policy like this. And so, you referenced states that don’t have that high minimum wage, that use a tip product.
And I’ve worked in states like that, where I’ve made 2.13 an hour, but with tipping I’ve made well over that, like $40 an hour, $25 an hour, whatever it is. But here, what has happened, as they have raised the wage, the tips go away and it goes away in a couple ways, whether it be customer coming in and just the perception of you making $15 an hour seems like a lot of money to them because they don’t understand the industry and they don’t understand what we actually make or the fact that the employers just can’t pay $15 an hour across the board. So they’re actually giving, restaurant owners, are giving a raise to some of their highest paid employees, which are the tipped employees. And this does a lot of things.
It stagnates the wages for the back of the house, so they can’t give raises to people who work in the kitchen because they have to give that money to tipped workers in the front of the house that are already making 25 to $50 an hour. So that doesn’t make sense. And so it’s got to come from somewhere, right? So we’ve seen a lot of restaurant owners change their tipping models, going towards service charges and the like or taking away tip lines and things like that, which is what happened to me, which stagnated my wage. And it actually took money out of my pocket because I wasn’t able to maximize my income at all. And so that’s the kind of thing that you look at.
And then if you think about them trying to blanket this across the country, what might seem like something great in Seattle where their cost of living is so high, it’s not going to work in a place like Muncie, Indiana. That would just completely bankrupt, small, local restaurants. There’s no way they could pay that. So I think this minimum wage hike really needs to be looked at through a microscope to determine whether it’s viable for an entire country. I just don’t think that people are actually doing their due diligence and looking at this type of legislation under the microscope, like I want to say. So, yeah, that’s what I think. I think we just really need to-
Beverly Hallberg:
Yeah, no. I completely agree with you. And so often something that seems, as you said, altruistic and seems like a good idea, when you actually put into practice, it harms the people that you were intending to help. And that’s why I think with all policies, it’s important to look at the trade-offs because there are always trade offs. And I think this time with the pandemic has given us an interesting time to look at the workforce through the lens of technology. Now, not all businesses were able to keep functioning because technology wasn’t the answer for the type of service they did, restaurants being a good example of that.
But now as this time is more people are vaccinated, more people have antibodies and are getting back to work, our COVID numbers are going down, states are opening up, it’s now time, I think, to really look at the pandemic and what technology has meant for this time. It’s been a very hard time, but without technology, I don’t think we would have been able to weather it in some cases as well as we have. So tell us a little bit about your policy focus. You coauthored it it’s on iwf.org. It’s called Technology’s Potential Revealed in the Pandemic. Big picture, what was revealed? What did we learn during the pandemic? What did technology offer us?
Simone Barron:
Well, we first focused on three specific genres, I guess you could say, telemedicine, telework and virtual learning. And I think those are big topics that affected the majority of people in the United States. And I think we’ve seen that the pandemic really, really sort of shoved a lot of us into embracing technology, maybe some that was already available and sort of pushed the envelope for technology and the way that we use it. And specifically, like with telemedicine, we saw that there was less than 1% of all doctors visits being able to be offered or taken up through a telemedicine visit. But because of the pandemic, that went up to 69% because people, if they wanted to see the doctor, the doctor was saying, “I don’t want you in my office. We have to make sure everybody’s distanced,” and those kinds of things.
And I think that that’s an interesting idea because the telemedicine has always been here and we’ve had it for quite a while, but there’ve been a lot of restrictions from state to state. There’s different laws surrounding telemedicine and what could be available or what could be offer to people. And because of the pandemic, we saw a lot of that relaxed and so people were offered the ability to stay at home and have a doctor’s visit through the computer, which most people wouldn’t necessarily take up before that. So I think that having a large option or a large amount of options to be able to do something medically is great and it’s convenient too, because it frees up your time. If you’d have just some little grievance that you need to talk to your doctor about, you can do that through the computer.
You don’t have to take time off work and go in person and sit in a waiting room and all those things. You can schedule your visit through a Zoom call or whatever platform that they have. And then it’s also an idea that you’ve got the transfer of information as well. So it’s becoming easier as the states slack their requirements about telemedicine by how they transfer their information. And so that also makes it convenient for people to quickly get referrals to other doctors and things like that, where before it may have taken a little more time.
Beverly Hallberg:
Yeah.
Simone Barron:
So I think we’re seeing a lot of new things that people can take up as an option to go see the doctor and I think that’s fantastic.
Beverly Hallberg:
And one of the things I’ve wondered as we’re getting out of the pandemic and in some regards that I’ve wondered if those regulations are still going to be rolled back so that people can use telemedicine. Have you seen on any level that states or on the federal level, they’ve tried to reimplement some of these regulations? And do you think that patients and doctors will continue to want to use telemedicine? So was this innovative enough in a positive way that you think it’s going to continue?
Simone Barron:
I think it is going to continue. I think that the convenience for the patient, not only the patient, but doctors themselves, I think that it’s going to continue. It’s probably going to expand a lot. And I think that the states are going to embrace it. I don’t think that… I think there are a lot of questions yet and I think this happens with all of the tech things that are going on right now. I think that we still have to look at stuff and figure out what’s positive and what are the negatives to it as well. But I think for the most part, the flexibility that these sort of testings offer people who are working or people who are patients going to the doctor, things like that, I think that that is such a boon and I think through the pandemic, we realized that. We’ve got all this technology. Let’s start exploring it and embracing it and seeing where the positives for us lie. And so I do believe that the states are going to expand more and more options for telemedicine.
Beverly Hallberg:
Real quickly on telemedicine, before we move on to the teleworking aspect of this, one of the things I’ve wondered is if it is opened up this ability to do healthcare across state lines? That’s always been a big push by conservatives to open up the ability to see doctors in different states or use insurance companies that aren’t in your region. Did that open this up and is that a potential where you can see a specialist across the country because of telemedicine now? Was that one potential benefit of this?
Simone Barron:
Absolutely. I think it is a potential benefit. And when you see more and more people that are using telework, basically these people can be nomadic, so to speak. They can go from place to place and be able to see a doctor in another state, because maybe you’re working in a project in another state. I think that that’s really, really convenient and I think there are a lot of things that, again, we have to look at to make sure that people’s privacy and their information or health information is being taken care of and being protected. And those are the kinds of, I think, rules and regulations that really need to be sort of looked at and adapted towards telemedicine and telehealth.
Beverly Hallberg:
I find, moving to telework, I have found this area very interesting. My business district media group, we all teleworked prior to COVID, so we were already set up for this. I know a lot of offices had to reconfigure how their employees work very quickly once the pandemic hit us, but what did you see as some of the most innovative aspects of people teleworking and how much of that do you think is here to stay?
Simone Barron:
So telework to me is a really interesting idea and as we discussed before, I come from the restaurant industry, so I’m used to going to a place to work, and there’s no way that I can work through a computer waiting tables or what have you, so this is a really interesting topic to me. But the one main thing that I think telework offers, which is so great, is flexibility. That’s one of the most prized things to have in any work situation is to be able to come and go as you please, to be able to work when it’s most optimal for you. And through the pandemic, what we’ve seen is people were forced to work from home or those who could did, and it offered a flexibility and a better way to balance your work, home, work, life situation.
But some of the things that were also interesting to me, it would throw people, especially parents, into that situation where they were balancing teaching their kids at home and working and so that’s a difficult thing to sort of navigate. And so there are a lot of challenges with working from home, of course, distractions from being a parent to just being able to sit down and focus and be able to map out a schedule for yourself and work and make sure you’re productive. So I think telework has great potential to be a boon for some people. And like we’ve seen and what we wrote about in our policy focus is that most people that really sort of had success with telework were people who have college degrees and are sort of on that higher echelon of wage earners.
But then when you think about how that would affect, say a restaurant worker like myself, how did low wage workers actually try to adapt during the pandemic with a lot of people being able to work from home? And so for that sort of idea, what I look at as maybe a boon for some people, maybe not a boon for people that actually have to go to places to work, especially people who do work in industries like mine, where they are sort of reliant on people who actually go to the office to work, and now they’re not showing up, not going out to lunch and then that doesn’t feed my pocket book. So that’s an interesting dynamic there as far as how telework impacted different types of industries.
Beverly Hallberg:
And what I thought was fascinating about the innovation aspect to all of this in the restaurant industry is they had to think outside the box. And so delivering food, certain areas let you deliver alcohol through Uber Eats or whatever service that you use, Door Dash. And so they had to be creative, even setting up outside seating if they were allowed to have a certain amount of people sitting outside. Do you think this also demonstrated that whether it was more in the blue collar space or in the white collar space, that people did have to become innovative, that they didn’t stick to the whole nine to five, everybody go into the office mentality? They really tried to figure out within this free enterprise and the use of technology, how do we make this work?
Simone Barron:
Yeah, I think that’s great. And I think that’s one of the things that the pandemic has showed us again. We have this technology at our fingertips and how do we embrace it and make it work for us? And we did see that with the restaurant industry. We saw people trying to set up all kinds of different apps and ways that they could connect with their customer that they never even thought to do before. And again, yeah, I think you’re right. It’s taken us out of that nine to five mentality where you have to go to some brick and mortar place to actually be productive. But for things like a restaurant, I think you do have to get creative because it’s a different animal, so to speak. It’s not an office job where you can sit at a computer all day and be productive.
You actually have to interact with people. And that’s one of the things that the technology for me has a downside because I understand in a way we do get all connected. We were able to connect with our grandparents and our teachers and our doctors through Zoom calls and things like that, but where does it bring us together in such a way where we’re actually really having those meaningful connections? And when I think of working, and I specifically think about the restaurant industry, that’s where a lot of connections are formed. And so the restaurant industry, or a restaurant, is basically a heart of a community. That’s where people gather. That’s where they talk. That’s where they exchange ideas and they really connect. And so how do you change it from just serving food to really connecting with your customer when you’re not physically able to do that?
And so, yeah, we saw a lot of restaurants do creative things, like if you came by and grabbed something to go, they would get your information and text you a thank you and try to connect with the customer that way and actually have the conversation when they couldn’t do it in person. And those little things really, really matter. And I think something like that is going to remain in the restaurant industry where people will actually, even if they can come and sit down and do that, but maybe they’ll grab something to go and maybe you’ll get a little text from the restaurant saying, “Thank you.” And I think again, we should just really embrace what’s at our fingertips and be creative with it and see where it takes us.
Beverly Hallberg:
And I’m glad that you did mention the trade-offs. I do think the lack of connection with people has been a huge trade-off for so many people. And I think another aspect of technology being a trade off is this idea of privacy. And I think, especially when we think of young kids and online learning, the privacy aspect and also them just being on a computer and not interacting with kids and being outside. So my final question for you is that when we look at the trade-offs, especially in the terms of online learning, do you think what we should take from all of this is obviously there’s the bad, let go of the bad, but let’s embrace the good, the good that has come from technology during this time?
Simone Barron:
Yeah, I think we should. I think we do need to embrace the good and we need to maybe look at the bad, not let it go, but just look at it and see whether we either get rid of it or improve it. And as far as virtual learning is concerned, I think it’s sort of a mixed bag with students. I think there are some students that actually have thrived through this and then others that have not. And we’ve seen that kids that have, especially young kids or kids with learning disability, it’s very difficult for them to really be able to get the benefit of virtual learning. But for other children, I think where the social aspect in school was difficult for them to navigate, online learning is a great option. But then again, there’s a lot of things that need to be refined as well.
I mean, we saw public schools really, really having a difficult time trying to get some sort of coercive platform together. I know here in Seattle, the public schools had a really difficult time. They were sort of juggling using Zoom calls and a platform that was previously used to send information to parents. They were using those two things combined to try to teach students and it was really not working out. And I think we had a decline in students actually attending school for awhile until they got rolling. But then we also see other online schools that have already built out platforms like Canvas and others, where the kids can go in there and it’s really accessible to them. So I think there’s a lot to look at with online learning. I think it’s a really great way to be able to have access to education and be able to do something like working during the day or taking care of children.
I think for adults or people that are going to colleges and higher learning institutions, I think that virtual learning is really convenient. Again, it’s that convenience option that you have. So I don’t know. I think it’s a way for us to keep connected, but again, I think it’s not ideal and I would hate to see technology sort of, I don’t know, create the space where that’s the only way we connect and that we get used to that’s the only way we connect. And I think through the pandemic, we’ve seen sort of that we’re all trying to keep socially distanced and things like that, but I wouldn’t want that to be the norm.
I think that being able to… And especially you see that with young kids that want to go to school and be social with other children, I would hate those opportunities to be taken away from them because we are social creatures and we’re people and we do need to be around other people for our own mental health and it’s who we are. So I would hate for technology to overcome that, or not overcome that, but take that away from us as human beings. But at the same time, it’s exciting to learn how we can use the technology to help us.
Beverly Hallberg:
And that’s why I think this policy paper is so important because it does explore the good and the bad, the trade-offs that we all have when it comes to using technology during this pandemic. It is called Technology’s Potential Revealed in the Pandemic. You can find it on iwf.org. It does focus on the medicines, the telemedicine, telework and online learning, so education. And I think it’s a good thing to look at, to see how the free market was innovative during this very, very hard time. Simone Barron, thank you so much for your work on that and also for joining us today.
Simone Barron:
Thank you so much.
Beverly Hallberg:
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