Inflation has taken away all the wage gains for workers and then some(cnbc.com)

25 pointsby ScottMann5 lat temu1 comments

Inflation has taken away all the wage gains for workers and then some

https://www.cnbc.com/2021/11/10/inflation-has-taken-away-all-the-wage-gains-for-workers-and-then-some.html

1 comments

rapjr95 lat temu

From the article: "But the Fed is now putting a great deal of faith in the idea the wages soon will be constrained by rebounding participation"

If you look at the St Loius Fed's FRED economic data web site at the graph for "Population - With a Disability, 16 years and older":

https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/LNU00074597

you'll see that between 2019 and now about a million more people are disabled. This is likely an undercount. My guess is these people have long covid and can not work because they are too fatigued (we don't have firm data yet but it looks like about 30% of unvaccinated people that get infected get long covid, it is about half that for the vaccinated, though these percentages are currently just estimates). They may never come back to the work force. Which means higher wages may have no effect and we now have a permanent shortage of workers. I hope this theory is wrong but I fear it is not. The missing workers mystery may not just be due to retirement and burnout. Frontline workers are probably the most affected by long covid, but all types of employees are likely affected. So inflation may not be persistent, but worker shortages and wage gains may be.