Productivity Parade, Paycut Cleanup

A single-street editorial cartoon shows a gleaming corporate parade moving left to right. At the center is an oversized float built like a rocket-shaped bar graph labeled 'Record Productivity,' with executives in suits waving from the top and tossing celebratory confetti shaped like gears, lightning bolts, and dollar signs. Banners read 'Efficiency Wins!' and 'Do More With Less.' Directly behind the float, instead of a marching band, exhausted workers in uniforms trail on foot with brooms and dustpans, sweeping up the same confetti. Each worker holds a pay stub in the other hand, and with each step the stubs visibly shrink panel-style from normal size to tiny slips labeled 'adjustment,' 'freeze,' and 'cut.' The street is spotless where the executives have passed, but only because the workers are literally cleaning up the celebration of gains they created and did not share in.