Look, nobody at The Dissent is going to tell you workers don't deserve a fair shake. They do. The cost of living in this city is genuinely punishing, and wage stagnation is real. But here's where we part ways with the rally organizers: the framing of "Workers vs. Billionaires" is a bumper sticker, not a policy platform.

You know what actually hurts workers in San Francisco? A permitting process that takes months and kills small businesses before they open. A tax structure that punishes mid-size employers while the mega-corporations the marchers love to hate have armies of accountants to dodge every liability. Housing regulations so byzantine that building anything takes a decade and a lawsuit. These aren't billionaire problems — they're bureaucracy problems. And they're solvable, if anyone at City Hall cared more about outcomes than optics.

The rally's timing also meant some disruption to the workday for, well, actual workers trying to get around downtown. As one local put it bluntly: "Not going to school hurts the billionaires?" It's a fair question. The people most inconvenienced by marches through the Financial District are rarely the ones with helipads.

We'll say this: if you want to fight for workers, fight for lower barriers to entrepreneurship, affordable housing that actually gets built, and a city budget that doesn't hemorrhage money on consultants and committees. March all you want — but the real battle is in the spreadsheets, not the streets.

In the meantime, if the rally left you hungry and broke, San Franciscans have you covered. Multiple residents swear by spots like Baby's Eatery for an $8 adobo plate or bánh mì shops across the Tenderloin for a meal that won't require a second mortgage. Workers feeding workers — now that's solidarity we can get behind.