No. The checks were mostly meaningless.

The near zero interest rates, pause on student loan payments, pause on rent payments, doubling of unemployment pay, and then the dustings of stimulus checks and bonus childcare checks, all while most white collar workers just continued working like nothing happened, created an incredibly cash rich environment that most people have never seen before.

And the PPP loans handouts to business owners just to throw more gas on the fire.

Don’t forget Fed Quantitative easing that inject a ton in as well.

https://www.brookings.edu/articles/fed-response-to-covid19/

A lot of things were going on in the early 2020s that at least anecdotally seem to have disproportionately affected software jobs so I’m skeptical it’s purely an interest rate phenomenon. But the consensus does seem to be that software has gone from being a ridiculously easy job market by professional job standards to at least a moderately challenging one.

Software in the US has (aside from maybe finance) been an almost uniquely well-compensated field. That will probably adjust over time especially given the inflow of grads primarily in it for the money.

>A lot of things were going on in the early 2020s that at least anecdotally seem to have disproportionately affected software jobs so I’m skeptical it’s purely an interest rate phenomenon.

Software industry was over hiring probably ever since dot-com bubble because after the bubble burst revenue and profits were rapidly growing and it never really stopped. I would rather blame the managers who constantly pushed for more workers instead of increasing the productivity of the existing workforce.

Add the Inflation Reduction Act which did the exact opposite of its title (increased government spending when the labor market was extremely tight)

It's all the same money printing. The issue is that people generally believe that emergency measures were justified in early 2020 when the crisis hit and there were so many unknowns, but not justified a year later when the virus was already endemic and the vaccine was out.