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Exactly. This reason is entirely down to the lack of immigration due to travel restrictions and its effects on the wider economy. The media hasn’t really reported on this but it has been obvious for the past year. In a world without mass immigration to the west wages at the lower end would he substantially higher.

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Speaking of wages, another factor that could be interesting to consider: it's well known that Mexico is by far the country has most immigrants in the USA.

The current president of Mexico, who took office right before the pandemic started (Dec 2019), has been increasing the minimum wage at an accelerated rate [1] and set up a special economic zone along the Mexico-USA border. This zone has a minimum wage that's almost twice the national minimum wage, and lower taxes for companies [2].

The minimum wage there is still much less than the minimum wage in the USA, although I don't know what the average wage would be in one vs the other. Nonetheless, along with the rest of incentives immigrants have to remain in their country, I wonder if this could be leading to less immigration, on top of travel restrictions, etc.

[1]: https://www.vynmsa.com/blog/en/economy/minimum-wage-in-mexic...

[2]: https://www.gob.mx/se/acciones-y-programas/zona-libre-de-la-...

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