Work
Fig. 1. Yeah, this is me. The sign says, “If you’re whining about a labor shortage, STOP ignoring my job applications!” And the QR-code leads here. Photograph by author, January 16, 2023.
It’s ludicrous that nearly two years after Jon Schwarz debunked the “labor shortage,” retelling the story of its origins as a rationalization for slavery, explaining that what it really means is that employers can’t get workers cheaply enough,[1] 1) they’re still whining about a “labor shortage;”[2] 2) Robert Reich has to explain that, still, employers need to pay more;[3] and 3) I still can’t get a fucking job.[4] What Reich elides, of course, is that not only do employers insist (with Federal Reserve collusion) on lower wages,[5] but that employers discriminate, excluding workers like me. I can’t even, for very much the most part, get an interview. I just get ‘ghosted.’[6]
Robert Reich, “There is no US labor shortage. That’s a myth,” Guardian, January 15, 2023, https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2023/jan/15/there-is-no-us-labor-shortage-thats-a-myth
Illiberalism
Fig. 1. Photograph by Joachim F. Thurn, August 1991, Bundesarchiv, B 145 Bild-F089030-0003, via Wikimedia Commons, CC BY-SA 3.0 DE.
Anthony Faiola, Samantha Schmidt, and Marina Dias, “Brazil’s military blocked arrests of Bolsonaro rioters, officials say,” Washington Post, January 14, 2023, https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/2023/01/14/brazil-riot-investigation-military-collusion/
- [1]Jon Schwarz, “The Business Class Has Been Fearmongering About Worker Shortages for Centuries,” Intercept, May 7, 2021, https://theintercept.com/2021/05/07/worker-shortage-slavery-capitalism/↩
- [2]Catherine Rampell, “Where are the workers, really?” Washington Post, December 2, 2022, https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2022/12/02/jobs-report-labor-participation-low-missing-workers/↩
- [3]Robert Reich, “There is no US labor shortage. That’s a myth,” Guardian, January 15, 2023, https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2023/jan/15/there-is-no-us-labor-shortage-thats-a-myth↩
- [4]David Benfell, “About my job hunt,” Not Housebroken, n.d., https://disunitedstates.org/about-my-job-hunt/↩
- [5]Robert Reich, “There is no US labor shortage. That’s a myth,” Guardian, January 15, 2023, https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2023/jan/15/there-is-no-us-labor-shortage-thats-a-myth↩
- [6]David Benfell, “About that alleged ‘labor shortage,’ Not Housebroken, May 9, 2021, https://disunitedstates.org/2021/05/09/about-that-alleged-labor-shortage/↩