Josh Marshall points out the central truth of the "Great Resignation": most of the people who quit bad paying jobs did so to get better paying jobs. Some of this is two-wage families where one member has stayed home with young kids because day care is too expensive or too risky. But the central point is that this is not a normal jobless recession. If anything the Great Resignation's focus on better paying jobs may explain part of the inflation conundrum we find ourselves in.
It strikes me that this is also a latent product of Trumpism. Specifically, we need more low-income immigrant labor. As people decide that certain jobs aren't worth the money, we need to find laborers that are willing to do that work. Historically, that has meant immigrant labor. The workforce is essentially mobile - slow-moving, but mobile. There was some talk about Biden retroactively giving green cards to people who were denied them during the slowdown under Trump. There is an obvious political downside to this, as certain Americans hate immigrants. However, people also hate not being able to grab a quick meal at Burger King, because they have to close early for lack of workers. (The situation in my home town.)
For those that would complain that this is exploitive, I suppose the counter argument that if your choices are working a subsistence farm in Honduras and hoping that local drug gangs don't kill you or living in an apartment with electricity and hot water while doing menial labor...which one is more exploitive?
Working at Burger King is...not great. If we want our Impossible Whoppers, I think the answer is in Guatemala, Honduras and Haiti, rather than in the Federal Reserve.
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