[toomuchtodo]

Surprisingly, “paying existing workers more” didn’t make the list. Businesses are unhappy their margins are going to compress with the go forward cost of labor, and taxpayers are unhappy they’ll have to pay more to compensate workers providing government funded services (healthcare, education, schoolbus drivers, etc). The US has hit its “labor credit limit” and is cranky about it.

Example: https://www.eastidahonews.com/2023/09/idahos-direct-care-wor...

> The committee heard follow-ups to a February report issued by the Office of Performance Evaluations that found Idaho’s direct care workforce is short about 3,000 workers compared to national staffing levels. That report identified low pay as an issue for the program primarily paid by Idaho Medicaid, whose rates “do not support sustainable competitive wages for direct care workers,” and create a “wage cap,” the report found. The typical nursing assistant in direct care made $14.16 per hour and could earn 39% more by leaving direct care, the report said.

There is no labor shortage, there is simply no longer surplus labor (due to covid deaths combined with structural demographics) enabling churn that kept wages low.

[JumpCrisscross]

> “paying existing workers more” didn’t make the list

That falls under tapping underutilized labor pools. You're trying to take someone not working and convincing them to work.

There's about 8% slack in labor-force participation to late-nineties peaks [1]. But per the article, some of that is retirement. It's not a long-term solution to rely on paying retirees to come back into the workforce.

When an individual company (or state) faces a shortage of workers, it's often due to pay. Idaho should pay its nurses more. When an entire economy faces a shortage, it's something more structural.

[1] https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/CIVPART

[toomuchtodo]

As long as there are workers 18-65 who are willing to work at a clearing price who aren't currently working because that price isn't offered, there is labor available. Agree relying on retirees to remain in the workforce isn't a long term solution; there is no long term solution when you've built your economy on an ever expanding labor force that is no longer ever expanding. The data does not show we are out of workers entirely, but there are jobs workers are unwilling to take at the current wage on offer.

Will we face a structural labor shortage causing unreasonably low unemployment rates and labor marketplace friction in the near term? Very possibly depending on 55+ workforce exit rates and immigration flow. Are we there yet? I don't believe the data shows that.

[syndicatedjelly]

> There is no labor shortage, there is simply no longer surplus labor (due to covid deaths combined with structural demographics) enabling churn that kept wages low.

There are a number of mental hoops that one must jump through for this statement to make any sense. A lack of surplus labor is what exactly, if not a labor shortage? How is a high supply not the exact same thing as a labor surplus?

[peyton]

It’s about proximity to the money printer unfortunately. Triffin dilemma. Like it or not, we’re not sending cash to nursing assistants in Idaho. If they wanted more money, they could’ve flipped houses in 2020–2022.