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Comment by buck4roo | Hacker News Reader

Decent explainer debunking the prevailing media stories:

Don’t Blame Workers for Inflation https://nyti.ms/2Xhxul7

That's a ridiculous strawman... nobody is blaming the workers. Workers respond to incentives like any normal person does. People are blaming federal stimulus spending and the Fed.

It isn’t that either. It is entirely supply chain issues, including oil.

How do supply chain issues cause companies to have a hard time hiring?

Companies won’t hire if they have backlogs in their supply chain and can’t bring in materials/product.

OK, but shouldn't that leave more qualified employees on the market for employers that do want to hire? The stories we're seeing are the opposite, with employees putting out unfilled want ads for weeks / months.

That's not what is being claimed though - the claim is that companies can't find employees to fill empty positions - it's not that they are not hiring.

Surely the extra stimulus spending is having a significant impact on supply chains?

It's impact is that it keeps them alive.

There are plenty of people blaming workers- I’ve heard many iterations of “we’ve got lazy people on unemployment who won’t work” or the signs at restaurants or stores saying “closed on X because no one wants to work any more”

Is lessened with the end of unemployment benefits, but saying no one partly blames workers is not true.

My unemployment benefits when covid hit (In Illinois) were absolutely better than the 20$ an hour some of these companies were offering. Yes, it was much lower than my software industry salary, but I did make the state maximum in benefits. For me it was a lot lower than my salary, but if the state maximum for some people was just under what they made, I can absolutely see people favoring unemployment benefits over working a crappy job.

There is an idea of morality in living on unemployment when you're otherwise capable of working a job, but during lockdowns, a changing society, etc., can you really blame anyone for choosing the easy option? Some people call it lazy, but I think it's more that many people in society are starting to see the old way just sucks for them. Living in lockdown has forced many to reevaluate what's important to them, and flipping burgers to pay bills isn't high up there.

> There is an idea of morality in living on unemployment when you're otherwise capable of working a job,

A bullshit idea since conveniently there is no accompanying idea of morality in living on your parents’ money when you are capable of working a near minimum wage job.

There absolutely is an idea of morality of living off your parents income, at least after a certain age. While I know plenty of parents who will assist their adult kids who are working or provide short term help in between jobs, I know very few who will unconditionally sponsor otherwise capable idle children, and I am perfectly fine saying those parents are making a mistake at many levels, including moral.

Workers are being blamed every time it's called a labor shortage instead of a wage shortage.

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