“Returning the Favor” host Mike Rowe said Tuesday there’s “no such thing” as a nonessential worker, despite orders across the country to shut down nonessential business in an effort to slow the spread of the coronavirus pandemic.
“There’s this fascinating conversation going on, on your network and all the networks, where we are making a distinction between the essential workers had nonessential workers,” Mr. Rowe told Fox News host Dana Perino via satellite on “The Daily Briefing.”
“Not to oversell it, but there’s something tricky with the language going on here, because with regard to an economy, I don’t think there is any such thing as a nonessential worker,” he said.
Mr. Rowe was responding to Ms. Perino’s previous guest, a physical therapist in Nashville who was recently furloughed because her job was deemed nonessential.
“This is basically a quilt,” Mr. Rowe said, “and if you start pulling on jobs and tugging on careers over here and over there, the whole thing will bunch up in a weird way.”
“In my mind, there’s no such thing right now as a nonessential worker,” he added.
Mr. Rowe, the former host of the Discovery Channel’s “Dirty Jobs” who has become a household name among blue-collar conservatives for his everyman and often patriotic words of wisdom, also urged newly unemployed workers who may be too prideful to accept help from the government to take advantage of the expanded benefits and not to wait.
He also repeated his skepticism of the value of getting a higher education while racking up student loan debt, especially at a time when education has become almost entirely virtual due to the pandemic.
He said his web series, “Returning the Favor,” recently donated 125 Google Chromebooks to a Newark principal who is “convinced” the pandemic will change the face of education forever.
WATCH: #DailyBriefing’s full segment with @mikeroweworks as he discusses rising unemployment during the #coronavirus pandemic. pic.twitter.com/Xs8g3jQtGu
— The Daily Briefing (@dailybriefing) March 31, 2020
