What's Really Fueling The U.S. Labor Shortage The Mehdi Hasan Show

[Quixote1818]

[Backseat Driver]

1. Let's not forget that TFG killed off

at the least estimate over 600,000 people. Of those, many were under age for full SS benefits; many were highly skilled with many years of education or experience in their present job, doctors, managers, skilled trade, etc...and now with a new variant, it ain't over because of their ludicrous selfishness and CT theories promulgated by GQP media disinformation campaigns.

[PoindexterOglethorpe]

2. I'm getting to be something of a broken record,

but I still like to point out that what's happening now in the labor force is analogous to what happened in Europe in the wake of the Black Death, 1348-1350. Anywhere from 30 to 50 percent died, depending on where. Some small villages were entirely wiped out, and a lot of places were not repopulated until the 19th century. People re-thinking their jobs is a good thing. People being paid a living wage is a good thing.

It's going to take several more years for things to shake out.

[LT Barclay]

4. I was hoping to hear something about 2 factors that I believe may have an influence,

first a lot of the work force was boomers hanging on and not wanting to retire. The pandemic probably forced them to reorganize their spending, do more with less and they have found they can get by without that extra part-time job.
Second would be the increased restrictions on immigration (legal and illegal) imposed by the pandemic.

[PoindexterOglethorpe]

5. I am a Boomer, and anything I say is merely anectodal.

Personally, I've never had a job that was better than not working. My personal work history has been somewhat peripatetic. Lucky me, I got vested in Social Security by the mid 1970s, and so my many years our of the work force to raise children wasn't quite as terrible as it might have been.

I will say this. When, after a divorce after some 25 years of marriage, most of which had been spent staying home raising children, and I looked at the SS payout at various ages starting at 62, I was somewhat horrified at how low the early payout would be. I moved from Overland Park, KS, to Santa Fe, NM to start a new life and went back to work. I was strictly entry level. That's important. What's even more important is that by going back to work I increased my SS payout enormously. Especially since I realized that I could wait to age 70 to collect my own amount. Once I turned 66, my full retirement age, I was able to collect 50% of my ex's SS. Along with other investments and a small pension, I was able to manage financially. At age 70, I switched over to collecting from my own account. Oh, and SS was very helpful here, as they notified me several months before that I needed to make the switch.

My ex happens to be nearly 5 years younger than I am. Currently, he is still not collecting from SS, as he doesn't need to and won't turn 70 until June, 2023. Honestly, my best financial outcome is that he die in June or July of 2023. I will then become his widow and will collect 100% of his SS. Alas, his family tends to live a very long time, so he'll probably live well into his 90s. Not sure I'll last that long myself.

[Warpy]

3. The prunefaced right should be applauding the labor shortage

since a lot of it is married women with children who have decided that paying through the nose for child care while earning a pittance just is not worth it for anyone, especially the children.

Republicans, especially the male ones, want it both ways: women need to work but they also need to be home 100% of the time to do 100% of the child care, and they can't conceive of why this is an impossible task.

I think a lot of restaurants will be going out of business, refusing to pay for what they've essentially gotten for free for so many years. Others will become buffets and take out places.

There is always a labor shortage after every serious epidemic. There was in 1920, wages went up and jobs opened up for women. The death toll hasn't been quite as extreme this time,mostly because it wasn't on top of a war, but employers are still going to have to cope with changes, most of them way overdue.

[PoindexterOglethorpe]

6. Oh, yes. Women need to work but they also need to be home 100% of the time.

That's the kind of thing that has enraged me my entire life.

Back when I had little kids, and the wives of my husband's coworkers almost all worked, I was driven crazy by that. I recall being at a company picnic, where one wife was now expecting her third child. She was complaining that once she had this new baby, the cost of daycare for the three kids would be more than she earned. I suggested she might want to consider staying home, and she looked at me as if I was speaking Martian.

In this country the cost of childcare is hideously expensive. In many ways I was lucky in that I never had anything beyond an entry level job. I had no higher degree, no career. My husband looked at his coworkers whose wives all worked and thought I should be working also. I'd point out he had no clue what the cost of things like childcare was for them, but I'm not sure he got it.

I do NOT want to suggest all moms should stay at home. I only want to say it was the right choice for me and I'm beyond glad I did it. But I also know that decent, preferably excellent, day care needs to be available to ALL mothers, no matter where they are on the income or education scale. All mothers. Personally, I think I would have still chosen to stay home, but that is NOT any kind of criticism or even comment on other choices. Sort of like, if you decide to become an electrician, my brother becomes a plumber, your spouse becomes an accountant, and so on. No one choice is inherently better than another. They are simply choices.

Oh, and back to the labor shortage thing. The Black Death of 1348-1350 ended serfdom in Western Europe. Because of the enormous death toll, those who'd lived were now in a place where they could actually demand wages, decent wages, for their work. That's where we are now.

I have no idea what the increase in restaurant charges will be if all restaurants now need to pay their wait staff, kitchen staff, bus staff, $15/dollars per hour. But it will be well worth it. Okay, so I personally might not be able to go out quite so often, but I'll be happy when I do. Besides, in the past year and a half I have hardly gone out to eat at all, so an increase in wait staff pay will hardly matter.

[Warpy]

7. My mother went nuts at home

and improved greatly in the late 50s, when they finally allowed mothers back into the workforce.

It should be a choice, It isn't, not for most women.

I'm from the generation that got sold "having it all without being told it meant we'd be doing it all. We were asking, begging and screaming for subsidized and widely available childcare 50 years ago. Men don't listen because WE are their childcare infrastructure, whether we're home or working, and most think we're magically in both places at once.