Why is U.S. labor supply so low?
So there are a few obvious issues - people don&#x27;t want to work for low wages with no other benefit to their lives, so if they don&#x27;t have to, they won&#x27;t. But the blame is on companies here: if you raise wages high enough and treat your employees well, someone will do the job. In order to suppress wages, we&#x27;ve generally kept immigration high and kept social services low. As immigration has declined and we&#x27;ve recently injected cash directly into the hands of the people, wages have climbed.<p>But I think there&#x27;s another elephant in the room that nobody has mentioned: the accumulation of wealth and its staying power over generations has created a large class of people that don&#x27;t have to work (and have never had to). You don&#x27;t have to be a billionaire to be in that class. If you inherit (or are gifted) a home, the amount of income you require to live is very low, certainly less than full time wages. If you additionally inherit money and have it modestly invested, you could easily live off that money and never work. Some of these people work, but not all, and they are quite able to take long breaks in employment during a pandemic if they choose. This class of people continues to grow every year as our methods for taxing wealth are ineffective. Frankly, assuming most of us are software devs or work for vcs - our children will probably be a part of this class of people. Some of you reading this already are. But I don&#x27;t know how an economy continues with this class growing the way it has (ok, the answer is the wealth will eventually get inflated away but that will be a big problem for all of us).<p>There&#x27;s also another class of people that are perfectly happy working part time and just getting by - this group is happier working a bit but not full time, and certainly not multiple jobs. The lack of motivation is tied to the lack of advancement options for all but a few. If you didn&#x27;t take one of the few high-income tracks in university, and you don&#x27;t have the technical chops for software, or the physical durability for a trade, there aren&#x27;t great options for you to make a lot of money.