May Day in a pandemic The Covid-19 has seriously affected what Freud called the ability to love and work, his view of mental health. The writer is a senior political economist based in Islamabad. He can be reached at [email protected] What is the state of work and workers on the 135 th May Day falling tomorrow? The Covid-19 pandemic has seriously affected what Freud called the ability to love and work, his view of mental health. There is little pain of work and no pleasure in leisure, destroying the very foundations of neoliberal economics. In the land of Chicago bombing of workers, President Joe Biden signed an executive order last Tuesday to raise the federal minimum wage to $15 an hour. The progressives continue their pressure to make it the national minimum hourly wage, which has stayed at $7.25 since 2009. Out here, the minimum wage is stuck at the pre-pandemic level of Rs17,500, estimated to be half of the living wage. For its lowest quintile in urban areas, the Household Integrated Economic Survey 2018-19 showed average monthly consumption expenditure per household of Rs23,515. Not everyone is employed and those who are, do not necessarily enjoy the minimum wage. According to the Labour Force Survey 2017-18, the latest available, 53.3% of the employed received a monthly wage of up to Rs15,000. At Rs11,884, the average wage for woman workers was even lower. Officials have no interest in enforcement and workers are too weak to bargain collectively.