Hey, pitchfork listeners, Goldie here, hoping you all had a wonderful Labor Day weekend.

And to celebrate the holiday, we're re-earing this episode from 2021,

where we talked with Heidi Sheerholz, the former chief economist at the U.S. Department of Labor,

and currently the president of the Economic Policy Institute, about the so-called labor shortage

that was much in the news back then and why, if employers are having a hard time finding workers,

they might want to try increasing wages.

There's always in the background employers complaining about not being able to find the workers

they want, but it's particularly loud today. No doubt you've all seen the headlines recently about a

so-called labor shortage. The thing that I always suggest that people say is when they hear an

employer say I can't find the workers that I need always add the phrase at the wage I want to pay.

From the home offices of civic ventures in downtown Seattle, this is pitchfork economics,

with Nick Hanauer, the best place to get the truth about who gets what and why.

I'm Nick Hanauer, founder of Civic Ventures. I'm David Goldstein, senior fellow at Civic Ventures.

No doubt you've all seen the headlines recently about a so-called labor shortage striking the

American economy these days. Everybody's all lazy on unemployment or something, so nobody's taken

any jobs. Absolutely. The story is everywhere, employers complaining about not being able to find

workers. Goldie, I think that there's always in the background employers complaining about not

being able to find the workers they want, but it's particularly loud today. There's good reasons

for it as the economy accelerates. Virtually everything is in short supply, including lumber.

People are scrambling to fill the spots. They laid off or fired workers going into the pandemic,

and now everybody's scrambling to get them back. But the most harmful part about this narrative

is that it's not true? Well, is that the unemployment benefits that people are getting paid are

...