Supply-Side Economics Is What America Needs Right Now
In Congress’s next spending bill, the focus should be on employers and businesses as much as as employees and consumers.
Can Congress read the signs?
Photographer: Stefani Reynolds/Bloomberg
Employment data scheduled to be released tomorrow will refuel ongoing debates about U.S. job growth (or lack thereof) and what to do about it. Regardless, two things are clear: The labor market is in a very strange place — and because it is, the focus of policy should shift to the supply side of the U.S. economy.
There are so many forces at work on the labor market that they are difficult to disentangle: unemployment insurance bonuses, hesitancy over Covid, lack of child care, low wages. Still, after more than a year of debating whether to spend more government money to stimulate the economy, Congress needs to turn its attention to the incentives created by that spending.