The talk of the economic world is about shortages. Specifically, about labor shortages, buttressed by a record high in job openings, at 8.1 million, in the most recent survey from the Bureau of Labor Statistics. Because any threat that the great reserve army of the unemployed might not come to the rescue of low-wage employers must be attacked, this has led to the demonization of “lucky duckie” unemployed workers getting a whole $300 boost in their weekly checks. Some red states have rolled back that federal unemployment boost, and made gig workers and freelancers who cannot find work ineligible for support. While the Biden administration has rejected the premise that high unemployment benefits are keeping workers off the job, it also joined the parade by reinstating requirements forcing anyone offered a job to either go back to work or lose their benefits.

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In reality, there is no consensus on the reasons for the labor shortage. It could just as easily be driven by a lack of child care preventing parents from returning to work, fears of contracting the coronavirus in workplaces with lax safety protocols, and most of all, terrible pay and poor conditions making arduous low-wage work simply unattractive. If employers would just pay a living wage and not rob the dignity of their employees on a daily basis, that labor shortage would rapidly dissipate.

But there’s another set of shortages in the economy, which are less likely to go away quickly. They are actual reductions in the supply of goods and services, which has an impact on the labor market, but also on the psyche of the nation. Matt Stoller of the American Economic Liberties Project wrote over a year ago that the coronavirus would lead to an end of “affluence politics,” the idea that America is a nation of abundance where any desire is at our fingertips. Since the gas lines of the 1970s, we have lived without shortages, mostly blissfully unaware of changes in production, logistics, and the failures of the financial plumbers and bureaucrats that make the economy run. Now is a moment to confront the fact that we have a problem of inadequate production alongside unequal distribution, and figure out what to do about it.

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The decades-long illusion that we can outsource, concentrate, and grind down all our production and then immediately spin it back up at our own whim has been shattered. The lack of flexibility in supply means that extreme weather or just shifts in personal habits can leave us wanting. We haven’t paid attention to how the economy actually works, and we’re living with the uncertain and debilitating consequences. To paraphrase Stoller, being a wealthy society means being able to provide for the needs of our people. Theoretical wealth that cannot meet that challenge is useless paper.