Stossel: Stop Calling It a ‘Labor Shortage.’ It’s an Incentive Shortage | Jon Miltimore

https://fee.org/articles/stossel-stop-calling-it-a-labor-shortage-it-s-an-incentive-shortage/?utm_source=email&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=2020_FEEDaily
An Incentive Shortage, Not a Labor Shortage
It’s wrong, however. And John Stossel recently pointed out why.

“America has a record 8.1 million job openings,” Stossel noted at Reason. “The media call it a ‘labor shortage.’ But it's not a labor shortage; it's an incentive shortage.”

There’s plenty of labor, Stossel correctly pointed out. But the juiced-up unemployment benefits, which pay unemployed workers an additional $300 a week on top of their state unemployment benefits, have resulted in a perverse incentive.