the benefits have already ended. Places still can't get workers.

Give it time.

What do you mean?

The US labor force is on track to be constrained for decades. If we don't massively expand immigration or figure out how to have more babies, that's where we will be.

At the same time we're automating away millions of jobs, so maybe we shouldn't be so quick to take measures to flood the labor market.

I mean there is this UBI experiment is going to have a crushing impact on small business who can't afford to compete against the government and their preferred business partners for labor. This will produce a cascade of unemployed competing with each other for crappy jobs in the service sector. Meanwhile, the border is wide open and people are most definitely coming. Are they high-skill laborers? Hardly. They'll also compete for the low-skill agriculture, construction, and service sector jobs. The net-net will be that the Precariat will be driven to penury and servitude. Don't worry, they'll be masked so the rest of us don't have to see the anguish on their faces.

Well, economies are severely path-dependent. It will be different from today, but it will also be different from the pre-pandemic.