What to make of the labor shortage talk

A re-employment bonus is a good idea either way

(Photo by Joe Raedle/Getty Images)

In “The Coming Unemployment Insurance Bottleneck,” I warned that the impressive success of the vaccine rollout was likely to lead to a spring surge in demand for hospitality industry workers who might not want to come back to work since the Rescue Plan extends $300/week bonus Unemployment Insurance through the beginning of September.

It’s good to be ahead of the curve, but in that case, I think I was a little too far ahead of the curve since the piece didn’t generate much discussion. Yet now two weeks later, talk of a UI bottleneck is everywhere, with the anecdotes pouring in from annoyed business owners across the country.

Conservative elites are also increasingly talking about this — see Henry Olsen’s column in The Washington Post for a representative example — and critics of the Biden Rescue Plan see it as vindication of their views.

Since I predicted this bottleneck would become a big deal, I’m half-inclined to claim prescience and take a victory la…