“No one wants to work anymore.” This is a common refrain from business owners around the country as the economy opens back up. Conservative commentators claim that unemployment insurance is keeping people from going back to work and fueling widescale laziness—but is that really what’s going on?

Today on the show, labor economist Laura Dresser joins Thursday host Allen Ruff to challenge these myths of the “labor shortage” narrative. They talk about the working class in Wisconsin, the pandemic economy, the importance of worker power, and the real reason employers are struggling to hire.

Laura Dresser is associate director of the Center On Wisconsin Strategy (COWS) and assistant clinical professor in the School Of Social Work at the University of Wisconsin–Madison. She is co-editor of The Gloves-Off Economy: Workplace Standards at the Bottom of America’s Labor Market (Cornell University Press, 2008) and co-author of the annual State of Working Wisconsin report from COWS.

Cover photo: “Now Hiring Drug Free Workplace (New Berlin, Wisconsin)” by Jay, licensed under CC BY 2.0