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Business owners in Missouri had complained that enhanced unemployment benefits, as Gov. Mike Parson put it, “incentivized people to stay out of the work force.” He made Missouri one of the first four states to halt the federal aid; a total of 26 have said they will do so by next month. But in the St. Louis metropolitan area, where the jobless rate was 4.2 percent in May, those who expected the June 12 termination would unleash a flood of job seekers were disappointed, the New York Times reported. Work-force development officials said they had seen virtually no uptick in applicants since the governor’s announcement, which ended a $300 weekly supplement to other benefits. And the online job site Indeed found that in states that have abandoned the federal benefits, clicks on job postings were below the national average. Why businesses are having such trouble hiring when 9.3 million people were unemployed in May is a puzzle that has generated lots of speculation, but little hard evidence. Many economists are skeptical that enhanced jobless benefits have played an outsize role in the hiring squeeze. They are more likely to point to child care and continuing health fears with less than half the population fully vaccinated. Nor should it be surprising that the nation’s road back from the harrowing limbo of the pandemic, in which millions of jobs vanished and more than 600,000 people have died, is bumpy.

A federal judge in Florida blocked the Biden administration from distributing $4 billion in stimulus debt-relief aid to “socially disadvantaged farmers and ranchers” over concerns that the plan discriminates against White people, Bloomberg News reported. U.S. District Judge Marcia Morales Howard in Jacksonville on Wednesday issued an injunction against the plan, saying a White farmer who sued the Department of Agriculture alleging bias is likely to succeed if the case goes to trial. At issue is the definition of “socially disadvantaged” in the provision of farm loan-forgiveness aid included in the $1.9 trillion pandemic-relief bill. The Agriculture Department has said the plan was designed to remedy past discrimination against Black and other minority farmers in the distribution of government assistance. But the judge said that the Biden administration had so far failed to justify using race as a factor in forgiving farm loans. “There is little evidence that the Government gave serious consideration to, or tried, race-neutral alternatives” to the provision, Judge Howard, a George W. Bush appointee, said in her ruling. Judge Howard is the second federal judge to block the plan in response to a lawsuit by a White farmer. U.S. District Judge William Griesbach in Milwaukee issued a restraining order against it earlier this month. A number of similar suits have been filed, including one in Texas by America First Legal, a conservative legal group launched in April by former top Trump aides Stephen Miller and Mark Meadows, among others. That suit alleges the Biden loan-forgiveness plan violates the Civil Rights Act of 1964 by discriminating against “Irish, Italians, Germans, Jews and eastern Europeans.”

Unemployed workers in Maryland are going to court to try to stop the state from cutting off federal aid to the jobless, the Baltimore Sun reported. The Unemployed Workers Union announced a lawsuit Thursday challenging Republican Gov. Larry Hogan’s decision to end several pandemic unemployment programs early. The class-action lawsuit in Baltimore Circuit Court also seeks benefits for people whose cases have been pending in the state’s claims system. Named as defendants are Hogan and Maryland Department of Labor Secretary Tiffany Robinson. The plaintiffs are six Maryland residents who have filed for unemployment. They want a judge to issue an injunction to stop Hogan from ending the federal benefits. They also want the court to declare that the unemployment claimants have a right to withheld benefits, speedy adjudication of claims and adequate communication from the state labor department. Many claimants have been disqualified from benefits “without explanation or hearing” or “were placed in an ‘on-hold’ status for months at a time or indefinitely,” the lawsuit claims.

Republican lawmakers voted Thursday to stop a $300 weekly federal supplement that is added to unemployed workers’ benefits in Michigan, though the measure is expected to be vetoed when it reaches Democratic Gov. Gretchen Whitmer, the Associated Press reported. The GOP-controlled Legislature passed the bill on party lines, 19-16 in the Senate and 57-51 in the House. It would require the $300 pandemic benefit to end July 31. Supporters have said the supplement, which is on top of the maximum state benefit of $362 a week, discourages people from rejoining the workforce. It is due to cease Sept. 4 under federal law. About half of states, nearly all of them with Republican governors, have opted to end the extra benefit early. “It doesn’t make any sense for the federal government to pay people not to work when we’ve moving moving the state back to normal,” Rep. Beth Griffin, a Mattawan Republican, said last week, days before Michigan’s COVID-19 capacity restrictions and mask requirements were lifted. Whitmer, however, has said a lack of child care is a bigger barrier to filling jobs and wants to expand a state “workshare” program so employers can hire new workers who, while working, would still get the $300 weekly benefit.

Gov. Andy Beshear yesterday dangled a $1,500 bonus meant to lure thousands of unemployed Kentuckians back to work, offering it as an alternative to cutting off enhanced jobless benefits that Republicans and businesses blame for causing a workforce shortage, the Associated Press reported. The first 15,000 Kentuckians who qualify and return to work by July 30 will receive the one-time, return-to-work incentive, the Democratic governor announced. Beshear said he’s setting aside $22.5 million in federal coronavirus relief funds to pay for the incentive. “It truly brings, I think, government and the private sector together in a way where first we try the carrot as opposed to the stick to resolve this problem,” Beshear said. The governor has faced increased pressure from Republican lawmakers and business groups to curtail the proliferation of “help wanted” signs showing up at Kentucky workplaces. Kentucky House Speaker David Osborne gave a blistering critique of the governor’s initiative. Offering a $1,500 bonus to get people to return to work is “extremely insulting” to people who have worked throughout the pandemic, Osborne said in a statement.

President Joe Biden will meet with a bipartisan group of U.S. senators today to discuss their proposed framework for an infrastructure bill as he looks to push a large-scale spending package through Congress despite Republican opposition, Reuters reported. Members of the group of 21 senators, or "G-21," announced an agreement on a framework on Wednesday after a meeting with White House officials. The G-21 talks have focused on a $1.2 trillion, eight-year spending plan, with a mix of new and repurposed funding. For Biden, securing a large-scale infrastructure package is a top domestic priority. The White House opened talks with the group after the Democratic president broke off negotiations with Republican Senator Shelley Capito. The White House said her proposals had fallen short of meeting "the essential needs of our country." Biden, seeking to fuel growth and address income inequality after the coronavirus pandemic, initially proposed spending about $2.3 trillion. Republicans chafed at his definition of infrastructure, which included fighting climate change and providing care for children and the elderly. The White House later trimmed the offer to about $1.7 trillion in an unsuccessful bid to win the Republican support needed for any plan to get the 60 votes required to advance most legislation in the evenly split 100-seat Senate.

The pandemic killed the resurrected XFL, and the league, before being sold to The Rock, went through bankruptcy. Now, the players for XFL 2.0 have gotten their money, NBCSports.com reported. XFL players will get as little as four cents on the dollar for their claims for unpaid wages, according to a report on TheAthletic.com. The average claims were in the range of $14,000. Some will get less than $600. They won’t get the money until the end of this year or early next year. XFL 3.0 will return as soon as 2022.

As the national economy recovers from the pandemic and begins to take off, New York City is lagging, with changing patterns of work and travel threatening the engines that have long powered its jobs and prosperity, the New York Times reported. New York has suffered deeper job losses as a share of its work force than any other big American city. And while the country has regained two-thirds of the positions it lost after the coronavirus arrived, New York has recouped fewer than half, leaving a deficit of more than 500,000 jobs. New York City lost the greatest share of jobs among the 20 largest U.S. cities. The city had an 11.8 percent decline in jobs from February 2020 to April 2021, almost three times the loss on the national level.

A bipartisan senators’ group working on a $1 trillion infrastructure compromise more than doubled in size to 21 members on Wednesday, a key threshold that gives momentum to their effort as President Joe Biden returns from overseas at a pivotal time for his big legislative priority, the Associated Press reported. Biden told reporters he had yet to see the emerging proposal from the group but remained hopeful a bipartisan agreement could be reached, despite weeks of on-again, off-again talks over his more robust $1.7 billion American Jobs Plan. “I’m still hoping we can put together the two bookends here,” Biden said as he prepared to depart Geneva after attending a summit of European leaders. The administration dispatched top White House advisers for back-to-back meetings on Capitol Hill while the president was away. Biden and his Democratic allies in Congress are proceeding on a two-track strategy — seeking a bipartisan bill while preparing to go it alone if Republicans try to block the investments with a filibuster in the Senate. The administration officials huddled late Wednesday in the Capitol basement with the Democratic senators in the bipartisan group, grinding through details of the proposal. On Tuesday, the White House team shored up restless House Democrats eager for momentum on a shared domestic priority with the president.