OPINION | This article contains commentary that reflects the author's opinion.
Breitbart reported on Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez’s claim that the term “human capital stock” is rooted in slavery, despite using the phrase herself when describing how her policies would benefit people.
You can’t make this up. pic.twitter.com/uLZTMFrQ1P
— Caleb Hull (@CalebJHull) May 28, 2020
AOC’s claim came shortly after Kevin Hassett, an economic advisor to President Trump, described the anticipation felt by many “non-essential” Americans who are anxious to get back to working and earning money.
Hassett stated in an interview on CNN; “Our capital stock hasn’t been destroyed. Our human capital stock is ready to get back to work, and so, there are lots of reasons to believe that we can get going way faster than we have in previous crises,”.
White House adviser Kevin Hassett: "Our human capital stock is ready to go back to work." #HumanCapitalStock pic.twitter.com/Yl9KwJf6KP
— Aaron Rupar (@atrupar) May 25, 2020
The term “human capital stock” is commonly used to describe opportunities for people as a resource to add value to process of developing a product from an idea to something that is useable by a consumer.
It is unknown if AOC shared the view that she projected onto Hassett while she used the phrase, but she claimed that when Hassett said “human capital stock” it was because he believed that “the moment a person stops being useful to profit motive (retirement, health, etc) they are a liability,”, according to AOC.
AOC continued to bash the phrase that she once used, tweeting; “Let’s also not ignore the racial history of this terminology, which has roots in slavery,”.
The NY representative added; “Even today, the folks deemed as “human capital stock”(aka essential workers) are disproportionately Black, Brown, & low income White folks,” above a chart showing wages broken down by demographics. Hassett said “Our human capital stock is ready to get back to work…”, which would mean that the “human capital stock” he was referring to are non-essential workers because they are not working.
AOC posted the video of Hassett on CNN, providing followers and Twitter with evidence that she was misrepresenting his words, but Twitter has yet to rule this tweet as factually questionable.
Breitbart reported further on the common history of the phrase before and economic advisor from the Trump Administration used it.
In fact, the term is common economics terminology, according to both its definition and usage.
According to dictionary.com, it means “the collective skills, knowledge, or other intangible assets of individuals that can be used to create economic value for the individuals, their employers, or their community.”
“Education is an investment in human capital that pays off in terms of higher productivity,” the dictionary website’s sample sentence states.
The Economics Help website used the global Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development to explain human capital:
According to the OECD, human capital is defined as: “The knowledge, skills, competencies and other attributes embodied in individuals or groups of individuals acquired during their life and used to produce goods, services or ideas in market circumstances.”
Individual human capital – the skills and abilities of individual workers
Human capital of the economy – The aggregate human capital of an economy, which will be determined by national educational standards……Even mainstream media CBS News, while picking up on the headline, admitted the term is not derogatory.
“Trump adviser says America’s ‘human capital stock’ ready to return to work, sparking anger,” the CBS headline read.
“Despite the backlash, the term is standard in economics, and refers to the labor force or workers,” CBS reported. “Yet the incident points to the disconnect between economists’ technical vocabulary and the stress that many unemployed or furloughed workers are experiencing amid the coronavirus pandemic.
