Republicans can seek to help workers while helping businesses to grow, writes Patrick T. Brown in Deseret News.
For the past two years, two surprising words have characterized the post-pandemic recovery across the United States: “Now hiring.”
Seemingly every coffee stand, auto body shop, restaurant, school, police station and shipping company is looking for warm bodies. Even the toy company Mattel is looking for a “Chief Uno Player.”
And this growth has benefitted those who often get left behind. Since the beginning of 2021, workers without a college degree have seen faster wage growth than those with an associate or bachelor’s degree, according to data compiled by the Federal Reserve Bank of Atlanta. Earlier this year, the unemployment rate for Black workers reached its lowest rate in at least a half-century.
The strong job market does make the Federal Reserve’s ongoing effort to bring inflation back under control a little trickier. But as a new book by the provocative writer Sohrab Ahmari underscores, that’s a good problem to have. Giving more bargaining power to workers is an essential part of what makes capitalism work. And this realization means that any self-described party of the working class must learn to embrace the beauty of tight labor markets.
