The Morning: “It’s not enough”

The strange problem of part-time work during a labor shortage.

View in browser|nytimes.com February 2, 2022 By David Leonhardt Good morning. Why are so many part-time workers struggling to find full-time work during a labor shortage? Brenda Garcia.An Rong Xu for The New York Times Wait it out Brenda Garcia, who works at a Chipotle in Queens, has a problem that may sound surprising in today's tight labor market. She is a part-time employee who wants more work, but the restaurant keeps assigning her less than 20 hours a week. "It's not enough for me," Garcia told my colleague Noam Scheiber. "They're not giving me a stable job." Garcia is one of millions of Americans who want an established, full-time work schedule and are struggling to find it, as Noam explains in a Times article. As a result, these part-timers struggle with not only low pay but also uncertain shifts that can change at the last minute, disrupting the rest of their lives. The workers can obviously quit, but they often find that the other jobs available to them have similar problems. How could this be when the country is in the midst of a labor shortage in which employers are struggling to fill jobs? Because executives at many companies have decided that part-time work is too important to abandon just because the labor market is temporarily tight. Part-time work allows companies to hold down labor costs in two crucial ways. First, companies can reduce their benefit costs because part-time workers often do not receive health care and retirement benefits. Second, companies can change staffing levels quickly, to meet demand on a given day or week, rather than having workers sit idle during slower periods. "It's very deeply embedded in employers' business models," Noam — who covers workers and the workplace from Chicago — told me. "They're incredibly reluctant to give it up, even if it means enduring labor shortages and elevated turnover in the short and intermediate term. Basically, they think it makes more economic sense to wait out the current shortages than to fundamentally change their labor model." That may well be a rational decision for individual businesses. The shift toward flexible, part-time and often outsourced work is a major reason that corporate profits have risen in recent decades. After-tax corporate profits have accounted for more than 7 percent of national income in recent years, up from an average of 5.6 percent from the 1950s through the 1970s, according to the Commerce Department. If employers shift away from part-time work during a tight labor market like today's, they worry they will be stuck with higher labor costs for years. "Employers will typically try everything else first — raising wages, offering bonuses and other financial incentives, giving part-timers more hours temporarily," Noam explains. "All these measures are reversible, and presumably will be reversed once the labor shortages subside." Striking workers at King Soopers in Glendale, Colo.Michael Ciaglo/Getty Images The power dynamic Companies have been able to insist on so much part-time work largely because they have more negotiating power over workers than in the past. The corporate sector is more consolidated than it was decades ago, leaving the average employer with more resources and the average worker with fewer alternatives in any given industry. Workers, for their part, are much less likely to belong to a union than in the past. And union members make more money than similar nonunion workers, as an extensive study of the U.S. economy by economists at Princeton and Columbia has found. Unions effectively shift some of a company's revenue from profits to wages. Shrinking unions, in turn, have contributed to growing economic inequality. One way that unions tend to lift wages is by putting pressure on companies to hire people full time — and threatening to strike if the companies refuse. Last month, unionized workers at King Soopers, a supermarket chain mostly in the Denver area and owned by Kroger, went on strike. They made the growth of part-time work a central issue. In the strike's settlement, Kroger agreed to contract language that will likely lead it to add 1,000 or more full-time jobs over the next three years. A majority of jobs at King Soopers are still part-time, but the settlement has changed the balance. "Without a labor union that could organize a strike and provide strike pay, it's hard to see how most workers could pressure their employers to make a similar change," Noam said. In the short term, a tight labor market will lift wages for many American workers. If it were to persist for years — which is unlikely — it might alter the balance of power between workers and employers. But the more plausible way that balance could change is through government policy. The House has passed a bill called the PRO Act that would make it easier for workers to form unions, and President Biden supports it. Among other things, the bill would bar companies from requiring employees to attend anti-union meetings and would impose financial penalties on companies that fire workers for trying to organize a union. The bill seems stalled in the Senate, where Republicans oppose it. Democrats may try to pass some of the bill's provisions along party lines in coming months. The bottom line The increasing inequality of the U.S. economy over the past half-century is unlikely to end because of a temporarily tight labor market. "Labor shortages may be a necessary condition for changing the nature of these jobs," Noam says, "but they're generally not a sufficient condition." 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Liberals' preference for policymaking via unelected bureaucrats is undemocratic, Ross Douthat argues. Liz Cheney takes on election lies. Neil Young stands against Covid-19 misinformation. We need similar truth-tellers on climate change, Thomas Friedman writes. Subscribe Today A subscription to The New York Times plays a vital role in making this in-depth reporting possible. Consider supporting us by becoming a subscriber today. MORNING READS J.Lo seems to be more relevant than ever.Chantal Anderson for The New York Times Fame: Can Jennifer Lopez save the rom-com? Groundhog Day: The big marmots are more social than scientists thought. "Super invaders": These are the rampaging pigs of the Bay Area. Books: An 8-year-old wrote a book and hid it on a library shelf. It's a hit. Advice from Wirecutter: Consider an adjustable desk lamp. Lives Lived: Alan A. Stone trained as a psychiatrist and psychoanalyst and taught at Harvard Law School, where he challenged psychiatry's use in public policy. He died at 92. ARTS AND IDEAS Sam Ezersky, the editor of the Spelling Bee.Melissa Bunni Elian for The New York Times 'Not in word list' If you've ever played Spelling Bee, there's a chance you've been frustrated when the game didn't recognize a word you entered. Sam Ezersky, the Bee's editor, is on the receiving end of a lot of those complaints. But choosing which words will make the official list isn't as easy as you may think, as Sam explained in a Twitter thread. Some common terms are proper nouns ("Barbacoa"); some are two words ("road map"); and some are modern slang without an official definition ("laggy"), all of which would disqualify them. Many decisions are more subjective, on words that might appear in the dictionary but would be unknown to most players — like "ototomy," an omission that Sam's own father complained to him about. "I neither want to skew too easy nor too hard, so that anybody can delight in playing," Sam told us. "After all, that's why my role exists in the first place: to find a balance for what would otherwise be an unchecked, unfiltered lexicon." And he continually seeks that balance. Sam says he regularly adds words to the list after hearing from readers — as he recently did with Barbacoa, road map and laggy. PLAY, WATCH, EAT What to Cook David Malosh for The New York Times A drizzle of melted garlic butter improves almost everything, including this fish. What to Read The influential Detroit musician J Dilla, who died in 2006, gave few interviews. The biography "Dilla Time" by Dan Charnas expands upon the rap producer's legacy. What to Watch Hulu's "Pam & Tommy" is a "picaresque porn-world caper" and a 21st-century reconsideration of how the 1990s treated young women, James Poniewozik writes. Late Night The hosts talked about Brady's retirement. Now Time to Play The pangram from yesterday's Spelling Bee was mythology. Here is today's puzzle — or you can play online. Here's today's Mini Crossword, and a clue: Omen on Feb. 2 (six letters). If you're in the mood to play more, find all our games here. Thanks for spending part of your morning with The Times. See you tomorrow. — David P.S. Thomas Gibbons-Neff and Christina Goldbaum will lead the Kabul bureau, continuing The Times's Afghanistan coverage. Here's today's front page. "The Daily" is about a plan to seize voting machines. On "The Argument," a debate about where Democrats go from here. Claire Moses, Ian Prasad Philbrick, Tom Wright-Piersanti, Ashley Wu and Sanam Yar contributed to The Morning. You can reach the team at themorning@nytimes.com. Sign up here to get this newsletter in your inbox. Continue reading the main story Need help? Review our newsletter help page or contact us for assistance. 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The Morning: Inflation anger

Why it is more intense than usual.

View in browser|nytimes.com Continue reading the main story February 1, 2022 By David Leonhardt Good morning. Inflation is up, and Americans are mad. But it's not a simple story. A gas station in Los Angeles.Philip Cheung for The New York Times Prices and ire, rising Paul Krugman, the economist and Times Opinion columnist, asked an intriguing question last week: Why are Americans so upset about inflation? Inflation usually creates some dissatisfaction, of course. When price increases exceed wage increases, it means that the effective pay of most families is falling. That has happened in the U.S. over the past year. It's partly a reflection of rising inflation around the world. Prices have increased because Covid-19 disruptions have reduced the supply of many goods while government stimulus programs have put extra money into families' bank accounts. More demand plus less supply equals higher prices. But inflation is especially high in the U.S. The main reason is probably that this country spent more money on pandemic stimulus than many other countries. A second reason is that daily life here remains more disrupted than in much of Europe or Asia. Chart shows year-over-year change. | Source: U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics; O.E.C.D. Yet even with the highest inflation rate since the 1980s, the U.S. economy is functioning pretty well in other ways. Work is so plentiful that many people are quitting their jobs for better ones. Thanks to the stimulus money and rising home values and stock prices, most families are better off financially than when the pandemic began. Child poverty has plummeted. Lifesaving vaccine shots are universally available. As Krugman noted, an inflation rate that exceeds wage growth does not automatically make Americans grumpy. In both 1984 and 1988, when Republicans held the White House, inflation was also eating up wage gains. "Yet, Republicans won both elections by large margins by running on the economy," Krugman noted. They were able to do so because economic confidence was high. Today, it is not: Source: Gallup Krugman suggests that the main reason is a national narrative, coming mostly from the media, that focuses on inflation and ignores the economy's strengths. And I don't doubt that this negative narrative plays a role in the country's dissatisfaction. As regular Morning readers know, I agree that we in the media have a bad-news bias. But I would be surprised if a media narrative were the full story. What else might explain the dissatisfaction? Even if you forget about inflation, the experience of living and working in the U.S. economy is often unpleasant right now. Among the problems: Public buses and subways are unreliable, mostly because of Covid absences, lengthening commutes. School buses and after-school activities are unreliable, creating child-care gaps. Grocery stores are routinely out of items. Retail lines are long. Doctor's appointments can be hard to get. A tough problem In coming months, inflation is likely to decline. Much of the pandemic stimulus is expiring, and the Federal Reserve will be raising interest rates, as several top officials emphasized yesterday. The Biden administration is also taking steps to increase the supply of goods. It has encouraged ports to remain open and tried to increase the pool of truck drivers, by expanding apprenticeships and reducing licensing wait times. "We are working aggressively with the private sector to increase throughput in the ports, and we're posting real results," Jared Bernstein, a member of the President Biden's Council of Economic Advisers, told me. "A key part of that is our trucking action plan, to improve the quality and quantity of those jobs." Still, it remains unclear how far inflation will decline this year. "It's a very difficult problem for them to address," my colleague Ana Swanson, who covers economic policy, said. Some economists have pointed out that inflation is now so high that it could decline in coming months while remaining uncomfortably high. Ultimately, I think it makes sense to think of inflation not as a narrow economic problem but as part of something larger. American life remains highly abnormal because of the pandemic's disruption to daily life. By many measures — mental health, suicide attempts, blood pressure, violent crime, vehicle crashes, student learning — society is not functioning very well. An inflation rate high enough to shrink paychecks is another item on that list, and hardly the most important one. No wonder most Americans have grown frustrated, including with Biden. People's living standards and even physical well-being are suffering. A disproportionate toll is falling on low-income families and children. 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Factory farms wreak havoc on the climate, and lobbyists help them get away with it, this video shows. Subscribe Today A subscription to The New York Times plays a vital role in making this in-depth reporting possible. Consider supporting us by becoming a subscriber today. Continue reading the main story ADVERTISEMENT MORNING READS Rihanna and A$AP Rocky in Harlem.Diggzy/Shutterstock Street style: The celebrity pregnancy photo shoot has evolved. Its new winning entry? Rihanna. Group chats: A pandemic staple, they're going silent. The Shift: Spotify's Joe Rogan problem isn't going away. Tech: How Facebook is morphing into Meta. A Times classic: What the movies taught our critic about being a woman. Lives Lived: Maj. Gen. John Singlaub waged clandestine warfare for the Army and the C.I.A., then retired under pressure after criticizing Jimmy Carter. Singlaub died at 100. 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It follows three couples who correspond once a day for 30 days via voice memo, without exchanging photos or other identifying details. "You're not being distracted by what someone looks like or what's in their background," Heather Li, the show's creator, said. "I think it's harder to prejudge someone if you don't have as many data points." For more: Read Caity Weaver on why viewers love dating shows where contestants can't see each other. PLAY, WATCH, EAT What to Cook David Malosh for The New York Times Chicken breasts don't have to be dry with this lemony recipe. Now Streaming A documentary spotlights Janet Jackson, featuring interviews with the hitmakers Jimmy Jam and Terry Lewis, as well as her former choreographer Paula Abdul. What to Read In "Eating to Extinction," the BBC journalist Dan Saladino argues for the importance of food diversity and showcases treasures we risk losing. Late Night The hosts discussed Donald Trump. Now Time to Play The pangram from yesterday's Spelling Bee was talkative. Here is today's puzzle — or you can play online. Here's today's Mini Crossword, and a clue: Affirmatives (five letters). If you're in the mood to play more, find all our games here. Thanks for spending part of your morning with The Times. See you tomorrow. — David P.S. The Times bought Wordle, the sudden hit game, for a seven-figure sum. Here's today's front page. "The Daily" is about inflation. On "The Ezra Klein Show," Amanda Litman talks about how to get involved in local politics. Claire Moses, Ian Prasad Philbrick, Ashley Wu and Sanam Yar contributed to The Morning. You can reach the team at themorning@nytimes.com. Sign up here to get this newsletter in your inbox. Continue reading the main story Need help? Review our newsletter help page or contact us for assistance. You received this email because you signed up for the Morning newsletter from The New York Times, or as part of your New York Times account. To stop receiving these emails, unsubscribe or manage your email preferences. Subscribe to The TimesGet The New York Times app Connect with us on: Change Your EmailPrivacy PolicyContact UsCalifornia Notices The New York Times Company. 620 Eighth Avenue New York, NY 10018