In Truckee - this is the problem: Sure, you can live in Reno 40 minutes away and make $15-20 an hour there(but rents are rising - I know someone paying $3200 for a place now), but then why would you commute to a small town 45 minutes away for the same $17 if you can't live there and enjoy the mountains?

1) It seems obvious that the high fatality rate among line cooks and other “essential workers” has driven them out of that line of work. If my colleague died for a line cook job, I’d strongly consider changing careers.

2) We’re running into the consequences of spending a year calling these people “essential workers” and “heroes” after decades of treating them like garbage. They’ve had a taste of dignity and recognition that they’ve been denied for a long time, good luck taking it back away.

3) In many ways this looks less like a labor shortage and more like a capital strike. Unless if you’re in an area where there has been significant migration, the workers do exist and are willing to work … but not at the rates that capital is demanding that they work.

Avoidance of such positions for perceived risk seems more likely, as well as low pay and high stress.

Let's just mention that the Biden administration undid the Trump restrictions on immigration and instituted the child tax credit.

The second part is not true. As part of COVID stimulus, Congress instituted a temporary increase in the pre-existing child tax credit, and as part of making that stimulus timely made it so that a portion of the credit would be paid out monthly this year.