b'There has been a bit of panic lately over employers who say not enough people want to apply for open jobs. Are we facing a labor shortage? Have stimulus checks and expanded unemployment insurance payments created an economy full of people who don\\u2019t want to work \\u2014 and who are holding back the economic recovery? That\\u2019s one theory, anyway. But it\\u2019s leading to real policy change: 25 Republican governors have cut off expanded unemployment benefits early.\\n\\nYou can also tell a different story: The continuing threat of the coronavirus and the ongoing traumas and child care disruptions mean lots of workers don\\u2019t feel safe taking jobs in poorly ventilated spaces. Others may be using their stimulus checks and unemployment benefits to let them find a better job than they had before the pandemic, insisting on better pay and conditions. And if so \\u2014 isn\\u2019t that a policy success?\\n\\nThis is a moment when an implicit but ugly fact of our economy has been thrown into unusual relief: Our economy relies on poverty \\u2014 or at least the threat of it \\u2014 to force people to take bad jobs at low wages. This gets couched in paeans to the virtues of work, but the truth is more instrumental. The country likes cheap goods and plentiful services, and it can\\u2019t get them without a lot of people taking jobs that higher-income Americans would never, ever consider. When we begin to see glimmers of worker power in the economy, a lot of powerful people freak out, all at once.\\n\\nJamila Michener is an associate professor of government at Cornell University and a co-director of Cornell\\u2019s Center for Health Equity. She does remarkable research on the intersection of race, poverty and public policy and speaks about all of it with uncommon humanity. We discuss the role of poverty in the economy, cultural narratives around work and deservingness, why the less-well-off masses don\\u2019t band together politically, how social programs disempower and humiliate the very people they\\u2019re ostensibly supposed to help, why it would be so hard to sell a universal basic income, whether the Biden administration\\u2019s economic agenda represents a sharp break from those of past administrations and much more.\\n\\nMentioned: \\n\\n\\u201cFragmented Democracy: Medicaid, Federalism, and Unequal Politics\\u201d by Jamila Michener \\n\\nBook recommendations: \\n\\nHalfway Home by Reuben Miller\\n\\nRoot Shock by Mindy Fullilove\\n\\nPoorly Understood by Mark Rank, Lawrence Eppard, and Heather Bullock\\n\\nYou can find transcripts (posted midday) and more episodes of "The Ezra Klein Show" at nytimes.com/ezra-klein-podcast, and you can find Ezra on Twitter @ezraklein.\\n\\nThoughts? Guest suggestions? Email us at ezrakleinshow@nytimes.com.\\n\\n\\u201cThe Ezra Klein Show\\u201d is produced by Annie Galvin, Jeff Geld and Rog\\xe9 Karma; fact-checking by Michelle Harris; original music by Isaac Jones; mixing by Jeff Geld, audience strategy by Shannon Busta. Special thanks to Kristin Lin.'