Everyone is looking at the wrong jobs numbers

Everyone is up in arms about the April jobs report. The US added 266,000 jobs during the month, but it was a fraction of what was expected and did nothing to change the unemployment rate.

At the same time, we had a viral TikTok video of a McDonald’s in Texas apologizing for being short staffed because “No one wants to work anymore.”

Conservatives are quite loudly implicating the cause of this (and other similar anecdotes from small businesses)are caused by supplements to unemployment benefits and other pandemic aid discouraging work.

So which is it? …well, probably both.