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A federal judge yesterday threw out the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention's nationwide moratorium on evictions, a setback for the millions of Americans who have fallen behind on rent payments during the coronavirus pandemic, Reuters reported. U.S. District Judge Dabney Friedrich said that while there was "no doubt" Congress intended to empower the CDC to combat COVID-19 through a range of measures such as quarantines, a moratorium on residential evictions was not among them. Friedrich cited the "plain language" of a law called the Public Health Service Act, which governs the federal response to the spread of communicable diseases, even while acknowledging that the pandemic is "a serious public health crisis that has presented unprecedented challenges for public health officials and the nation." The U.S. Justice Department said it is appealing, and will seek an emergency order to put the judge's decision on hold. Evictions "exacerbate the spread of COVID-19," and the moratorium "protects many renters who cannot make their monthly payments due to job loss or healthcare expenses," Brian Boynton, acting assistant attorney general for the department's civil division, said in a statement. The White House has estimated that one in five renters were delinquent on payments by January, while the CDC has said more than 4 million adults who were behind feared imminent eviction. Judge Friedrich's decision benefits the many landlords struggling to pay their own bills because they are unable to collect rent from tenants. The CDC moratorium began last September and was scheduled to lapse on June 30. Other courts have been divided over its legality, with some also finding the CDC exceeded its authority. Friedrich, an appointee of former President Donald Trump, was the first to formally block the eviction ban. At least 43 states and Washington, D.C., have also temporarily halted residential or business evictions, though the protections are far from uniform.

The private-sector labor market had a strong showing in April, adding 742,000 jobs, according to payroll company ADP, The Hill reported. March's strong showing was also revised up to 565,000 new jobs from the 517,000 originally reported. Economists had expected 800,000 new jobs in April, somewhat higher than ADP reported. Still, the latest uptick in jobs is significant and a sign of an economic recovery quickly gaining steam, with nearly a third of the hires coming from the leisure and hospitality sector, which was decimated in the COVID-19 pandemic. Over 85 percent of the new jobs were in the service sector. "The labor market continues an upward trend of acceleration and growth, posting the strongest reading since September 2020,” said ADP chief economist Nela Richardson.

The House Ways and Means Committee on Wednesday advanced bipartisan legislation aimed at helping people save for retirement, The Hill reported. The committee approved the measure by voice vote. The bill now heads to the full House. It’s unclear when the bill will get a vote, but its strong bipartisan support bodes well for its prospects. Similar legislation has been introduced in the past in the upper chamber by Sens. Ben Cardin (D-Md.) and Rob Portman (R-Ohio). The bill, which is co-sponsored by Ways and Means Chairman Richard Neal (D-Mass.) and ranking member Kevin Brady (R-Texas), includes dozens of provisions, building on a bipartisan retirement law that was enacted in 2019. Provisions in the bill include expanding automatic enrollment in 401(k) plans, raising the age for when people are required to take distributions from retirement accounts from 72 to 75 and allowing employers to make matching contributions to retirement plans when their employees make payments on their student loans.

Four weeks before its scheduled end, the federal government’s signature aid effort for small businesses ravaged by the pandemic — the Paycheck Protection Program — ran out of funding yesterday and stopped accepting most new applications, the New York Times reported. Congress allocated $292 billion to fund the program’s most recent round of loans. Nearly all of that money has now been exhausted, the Small Business Administration, which runs the program, told lenders and their trade groups on Tuesday. While many had predicted that the program would run out of funds before its May 31 application deadline, the exact timing came as a surprise to many lenders. “It is our understanding that lenders are now getting a message through the portal that loans cannot be originated,” the National Association of Government Guaranteed Lenders, a trade group, wrote in an alert to its members Tuesday evening. “The PPP general fund is closed to new applications.” Some money — around $8 billion — is still available through a set-aside for community financial institutions, which generally focus on lending to businesses run by women, minorities and other underserved communities. Those lenders will be allowed to process applications until that money runs out, according to the trade group’s alert. Some money also remains available for lenders to finish processing pending applications, according to a lender who was on a call with S.B.A. officials yesterday. Since its creation last year, the Paycheck Protection Program has disbursed $780 billion in forgivable loans to fund 10.7 million applications, according to the latest government data. Congress renewed the program in December’s relief bill, expanding the pool of eligible applicants and allowing the hardest-hit businesses to return for a second loan. Lawmakers in March extended the program’s deadline to May, but they have shown little enthusiasm for adding significantly more money to its coffers. With vaccination rates increasing and pandemic restrictions easing, Congress’s focus on large-scale relief effort for small businesses has waned.

As U.S. retailers celebrate a boom lifting one of the pandemic’s hardest-hit sectors, scars left by a year of bankruptcies and delayed vendor payments could threaten to undermine their recovery — just as the crucial back-to-school shopping season begins, Bloomberg News reported. After watching their receivables mount last year, vendors of apparel and other goods demanded change. In order to ship, many began requiring payment upon delivery of the goods or even in advance, according to people with knowledge of the demands, which were made of distressed and healthy clients alike. For merchants, that’s a big cash drain at a time of great uncertainty. The shift comes after retailers spent much of last year delaying payments to preserve cash. Such maneuvers have long been used by struggling chains, but amid the pandemic, even more stable merchants like Macy’s Inc. and Gap Inc. followed suit. An analysis of company financial data showed such buyers took at least two weeks longer to pay their suppliers than the same period the prior year. Vendors are “shell-shocked” after a string of Covid-era bankruptcies left them with large losses, and more concerned about guaranteeing they’ll be paid, said Perry Mandarino, head of restructuring and investment banking at B. Riley. “Late payments are not being tolerated,” Mandarino said.

States can seize third-round stimulus payments from those convicted of crimes in order to provide restitution for victims and their families, according to the Treasury Department, The Hill reported. “To the extent permitted by applicable state and local law, amounts paid in the third round of [economic impact payments] may be subject to garnishment by state governments, local governments, or private creditors, as well as pursuant to a court order (which may include fines related to a crime, administrative court fees, restitution, and other court-ordered debts),” a department official said in a letter to Sens. Maggie Hassan (D-N.H.) and Joe Manchin (D-W.Va.) last month. Treasury's confirmation means law enforcement in the states can seize payments directed to individuals convicted of crimes and redirect them to cover debts or fines.

The semiconductor shortage has slashed vehicle production so much that rental-car companies can’t get the new cars they need, so they have resorted to buying used vehicles at auction, Bloomberg News reported. This is uncharted territory for the likes of Hertz Global Holdings Inc. and Enterprise Holdings Inc., which have made their profits by purchasing new vehicles cheaply in bulk, renting them out for as much as a year and selling them at auction. In the past, they have bought some used cars to shore up an occasional unforeseen burst in demand, but rarely for the mainstays of their fleets. “You would never go into auction to buy routine sedans and SUVs,” said Maryann Keller, an independent consultant who used to be on the board of Dollar Thrifty Automotive Group, which is now part of Hertz. “These are special circumstances. There is a shortage of cars.” The demand is sending used-car costs soaring. The Manheim Index, which measures prices at wholesale auctions, shows they’re 52% higher than they were a year ago. “We expect to see records in the Manheim Index through June before demand softens enough to align with supply trends,” said Jonathan Smoke, chief economist of Cox Automotive, which owns Manheim, the nation’s largest used-car auction. “We expect retail prices to continue to rise into the summer, as retail trends tend to follow wholesale trends with a six-week lag.”

Restaurants, bars, caterers and other food businesses devastated by the pandemic began applying Monday for help from a new $28.6 billion federal aid program, but the money isn’t expected to last long, the New York Times reported. Despite a few glitches after thousands descended on the application website for the Restaurant Revitalization Fund when it went live at noon, the process was fairly straightforward, applicants said. That was a welcome change from the technical problems that have plagued other aid programs run by the Small Business Administration, which is managing the restaurant fund. “It was impressively smooth,” said Sarah Horak, who co-owns three bars and restaurants in Grand Forks, N.D. She was able to submit her first application just 10 minutes after she logged on to the website. Congress created the restaurant fund as part of the $1.9 trillion relief bill passed in March. For the first 21 days, the Small Business Administration will approve claims exclusively from businesses that are majority-owned by people who fall into one of the priority groups designated by legislators: women, veterans and individuals who qualify as both socially and economically disadvantaged. That latter group includes those who meet certain income and asset limits and are Black, Hispanic, Native American, Asian-Pacific American or South Asian American, the agency said. Applicants from those groups will be asked to certify their own eligibility for the exclusivity period. That three-week priority period alone is likely to exhaust the fund. The money allocated by Congress “is probably not going to be enough funds, in all likelihood, for the demand that’s out there,” Patrick Kelley, who runs the S.B.A.’s Capital Access office, acknowledged on a webinar last week. He said he hoped Congress would provide more money as needed. The fund offers grants of up to $10 million. The amount each business can receive equals the difference between its 2019 and 2020 gross receipts, minus certain other federal assistance such as loans from the Paycheck Protection Program.