The Fed is about to raise interest rates and shaft American workers – again | Robert Reich

Policymakers fear a labor shortage is pushing up wages and prices. Wrong. Real wages are down and workers are struggling

The January jobs report from the US labor department is heightening fears that a so-called tight" labor market is fueling inflation, and therefore the Fed must put on the brakes by raising interest rates.

This line of reasoning is totally wrong.

Robert Reich, a former US secretary of labor, is professor of public policy at the University of California at Berkeley and the author of Saving Capitalism: For the Many, Not the Few and The Common Good. His new book, The System: Who Rigged It, How We Fix It, is out now. He is a Guardian US columnist. His newsletter is at robertreich.substack.com