Biden Says Enhanced Unemployment Benefits Will Expire Soon

“Now’s the time to build on the foundation we’ve laid,” Mr. Biden said.

Payrolls are still 7.6 million jobs below their prepandemic level. Economic officials, including those at the Federal Reserve, had been hoping for a series of strong labor market reports this spring as vaccinations spread and the economy reopens more fully from state and local lockdowns that were meant to contain the pandemic. In April, Jerome H. Powell, the Fed chair, pointed approvingly to the March jobs report, which had shown payrolls picking up by nearly a million positions.

“We want to see a string of months like that,” he said.

Instead, gains have proceeded unevenly. Job openings are high and wages are rising, suggesting that at least part of the disconnect comes from labor shortages. That is surprising at a time when the unemployment rate is officially 5.8 percent, and even higher after accounting for people who have dropped out of the labor market during the pandemic.

Economists say many things could be driving the worker shortage — it takes time to reopen a large economy, and there is still a pandemic — but the trend has opened a line of attack for Republicans. They blame the enhanced unemployment benefits for discouraging people from returning to work and holding back what could be a faster recovery.

“Long-term unemployment is higher than when the pandemic started, and labor force participation mirrors the stagnant 1970s,” Representative Kevin Brady of Texas, the top Republican on the House Ways and Means Committee, said in a news release. “It’s time for President Biden to abandon his attack on American jobs, his tax increases, his anti-growth regulations and his obsession with more emergency spending and endless government checks.”

Republican governors across the country have in recent weeks moved to end the supplemental unemployment benefits that began under President Donald J. Trump. The idea is that doing so will prod would-be workers back into jobs.

Article source: https://www.nytimes.com/2021/06/04/business/economy/biden-jobs-report-jobless-benefits.html