I guess it all comes down to who is saying it. I guess most of the time it's the fact that the jobs are crap, but employers don't want to shift the social contract that creates the apparent contradiction, but who knows.
Postdocs used to be an exception, something prestigious you did before settling into a permanent role that might be a lower-ranked university. If you were really good, you might do 2 years at IAS or MIT before taking the position at a place like UCLA or Michigan (which are still excellent, just not as highly ranked). Then it became something you had to do, before getting any job--mandatory low-wage labor, another rung on the ladder. Now, it seems to be going out of fashion, as the prize loses its appeal.
I'm surprised this didn't happen 10 years ago. The academic job market has been a toilet for 30+ years--and this change is a good thing, by the way--and I had expected bimodalization to come much quicker.
You're absolutely right on the "labor shortage" bullshit. There isn't one. The working class has been fully depleted and there isn't any more give. People are shutting down. Workers who can't afford gas are forced to live off other people (either through illegitimate labor or by dependency.) This is the turtle at the bottom burping. About fucking time.
I see a similar dynamic for postdocs, but with a slight difference. I believe the PIs in the article when they say that they are having trouble hiring postdocs. As a former postdoc myself, it pays poorly and has no job security. You take those jobs mostly because you like the work, and right now many people have better options available. That is part of the reason I left my postdoc, but the other part is that there are just so few research jobs in my field (postdoc or otherwise) at the moment. Some fields seem to be flush with money right now and unable to hire enough people to meet demand, while others are barely hiring at all. My field appears to be barely hiring at all. And that is why I think that statements like "there are no jobs available" and "employers cannot find enough workers" can be both true at the same time, since it really depends on the field and what kind of work is being funded at the moment.
Job openings exceed job seekers by a record amount. Unemployment is close to a record low.
Not like there are hundreds of years of economic history to learn from...
Do you think nominal wage gains coupled with real wage declines makes people happy? Check consumer sentiment polling which just hit an all time low, why don't you?
It's funny to see society broadly reject the impact of covid era policy, yet some advocate to do more and more of it.
Fed kept rates low in pursuit of unsustainably low unemployment, by the way, motivated by pressure from progressives
Wages should increase in response, not decrease. Inflation hits different sectors differently, and I'm OK with a PS5 inflating 300% if it means that a person on a minimum wage can have food security.
There is a wealth of economic history that shows this.
The stimulus checks and co were the primary driver of inflation. Handing people more money is not the answer
By exacerbate I suppose you're imagining a cycle where higher wages result in higher prices which result in higher wages and so on. However wages are just another price in the market and it's not clear why the cycle needs to be broken after all prices have gone up except wages. We don't need to let workers end up holding the bag yet again.
You are referred to the PPP loans that the US gov delivered to businesses. I agree that these contribute to inflation, but note: these loans went to businesses to secure the individuals paycheques, not individuals directly, and indeed the wages were not affected. Thus, we have inflation as you describe, and the claim that increasing wages could help in an economic downfall is safe, for now.
However, the PPP is not what I am advocating for, and most people serious about the topic agree there were far more efficient stimulus models that the Biden gov could have explored. If you somehow got the impression I am advocating for the PPP, my apologies.
For an example of what I do advocate, I refer you to the stimulus packages provided by the Australian government during the GFC. There were two significant differences to the US govs and Australia's stimuli: for one, the Australian stimulus was delivered to individuals (increasing purchasing power of the individuals and stimulating further purchases) and secondly, it was done as a single lump sum early on in the crisis, and was done to promote spending rather than to replace income.
This allowed Australia to then leave the GFC with relatively little damage (it can be shown that Australian debt soared afterwards, though it is widely agreed that the cause of that debt was the successor governments misspending rather than the GFC debt).
To summarise, I reject your assertion that higher wages exacerbates inflation. If you have the 'wealth of economic history' to support your claim, please feel free to specify.
(Side note: SBA.gov states that this was actually a Trump administration bill, not a 'progressive' bill, but that is irrelevant for the broader point I am making)
Wages growing results in prices growing. This is still beneficial for the people whose wages are growing. (Which, in the past year, have mostly been lower class workers. Gas going up in price sucks, but an extra two dollars an hour more than offsets it.)