Fun fact: we have surnames largely as a result of another pandemic, the Black Death in the 14th century. The Black Death killed an estimated 1/3 to 1/2 of the population of Europe at the time (really!) and created a huge labour shortage. Peasants were largely serfs and tied to the lands of their lords. Surnames were an indicator of profession.

As a result of the labour shortage, wages went up and workers became more mobile, which created the need for surnames that weren't strictly profession-related. The King even passed a law to try and limit wages with mixed results.

This pandemic may well end up being a huge boon for real wages.

As many have noted: there is no labour shortage. There's simply an unwillingness to pay what the market demands. Additionally, the last 12-15 months have taught many people that commuting into an office is completely unnecessary and is essentially wage theft since you aren't paid for those 1-2 hours of commuting time.

A fallacy of youth I've found is to fall into the trap that things are only getting worse. A benefit of having some more experience and perspective is the realization that things happen in cycles.

We had union movement spring up, which were a huge boon for working conditions and real wages. In many cases the pendulum eventually swung too far in the other direction and unions became a tool for political power and an excuse for inefficiencies that paralyzed industries.

And then in the last 50+ years in the US we've had the cult of Ayn Rand acolytes take hold and sell people on the idea that they need to be beholden to employers. It's partly (IMHO) why we've largely seen near zero real wage growth in 40 years.

My hope is this is a turning point where we'll start to see it's unacceptable to not provide living wages and not to provide basic human rights like affordable health care.

This won't be a quick process but the main purveyors of pro-corporate propaganda, the Republican party, is essentially in its death throes. It is a now a minority that can only govern through voter suppression, disenfranchisement and gerrymandering.

Here's something I want any defenders of billionaires to consider: if you give people a living wage, what do you think is going to happen? They're going to spend what they earn. This is the fabric of an economy. After all, who does a trillion-dollar market cap company sell to if only 0.01% of the people on Earth have anything to spend?