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President Biden vowed yesterday that the size and scope of his $2.25 trillion jobs plan — as well as how to pay for it — is up for negotiation, setting the stage for what is likely to be months of congressional wrangling on one of the White House’s chief legislative priorities, the Washington Post reported. Whether a bipartisan deal ultimately materializes is far from clear, however, as a top GOP senator told Biden in a private Oval Office meeting Monday that it would be “almost impossible” to win over Republicans if the plan envisions boosting the corporate tax rate, as it currently does. There is also widespread private skepticism among congressional Republicans that the White House is genuinely open to a cross-party agreement that might significantly scale back Biden’s ambitions. But the president, as well as White House officials, insisted that his overtures at bipartisanship were earnest and that he would not have been spending hours meeting with Republicans otherwise. Read more.

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Workers are slowly pulling away from unemployment assistance as a U.S. economic revival picks up speed, with initial filings for benefits holding near pandemic lows and the number of people receiving help dropping, the Wall Street Journal reported. Initial jobless claims, a proxy for layoffs, increased by a seasonally adjusted 16,000 last week to 744,000, the Labor Department said on Thursday. The four-week average, which smooths out volatility in the figures, rose slightly to 723,750 from 721,250. Claims are still well above the weekly average of around 220,000 in the year before COVID-19’s arrival. The continued high rate of filings comes amid other signs of recent labor-market improvement. U.S. employers added 916,000 jobs in March, and the unemployment rate slipped to 6.0%, from 6.2% in the prior month. Real-time data on job openings indicate a surge in labor demand. Postings on Indeed, a job-search site, are now 16% above where they were in February 2020. The pace of growth in job postings has accelerated in recent weeks and is now higher than during the summer of 2020 hiring rebound. Demand for workers in sectors that thrived during the pandemic is well above precrisis levels. Job postings on Indeed for manufacturing, loading and stocking positions are now up more than 50% from February 2020, just before the coronavirus was declared a pandemic.

The Biden administration said on Wednesday that 25 million more stimulus payments worth a total of $36 billion had been sent out to Americans from the $1.9 trillion pandemic relief legislation, Reuters reported. The announcement of a fourth batch of checks was made by the Treasury Department and the Internal Revenue Service. It brings to 156 million payments the amount disbursed, with a total value of $372 billion. The latest payments of up to $1,400 began processing last Friday, with some people receiving direct deposits, Treasury said in a statement. The pandemic-hammered U.S. economy has been on the rebound, with 916,000 jobs created last month, bringing the jobless rate down to 6%.

Some Democratic policy goals in President Biden’s wide-ranging $2.3 trillion infrastructure plan could soon face a familiar obstacle: arcane Senate rules that limit what type of legislation lawmakers can approve along party lines, the Wall Street Journal reported. While Mr. Biden and top Democrats have said they are hoping to approve the legislation with bipartisan support, many Republicans have sharply criticized the plan’s proposed tax increases on companies. The Republican opposition to the plan has left Democrats preparing to advance the package through reconciliation, a process that allows lawmakers to skirt the 60-vote threshold required for most legislation. Democratic aspirations for approving legislation along party lines received a boost on Monday when the chamber’s parliamentarian indicated that lawmakers could use the procedure multiple times in one fiscal year. But even if Democrats can employ the process more frequently, measures passed through reconciliation will still need to comply with a number of Senate rules, including that they have a direct impact on the budget. Those rules could mean that several provisions in the plan, including labor rules and a clean electricity standard, may have to be removed from or amended in the final legislation, according to lawmakers and aides. Rep. Peter DeFazio (D., Ore.), the chairman of the House Transportation and Infrastructure Committee, said he expected several favored measures to be disallowed under the Senate rules. In particular, a push to bring back earmarks — which allow lawmakers to designate specific projects for funding — may be ruled out of bounds, he said.

Interviews with dozens of researchers and Americans still waiting for aid reveal ongoing problems with disbursing the $1,400 stimulus payments, processing 2020 tax refunds, administering unemployment insurance checks, and dispensing housing aid to people behind on rent and utilities, the Washington Post reported. As the Biden administration vows to deliver a more equal economic recovery, one of its biggest challenges is getting money into the hands of people who are still jobless or underemployed, so they don’t fall further behind. Experts say the administrative stumbles underscore the need for massive upgrades in technology, more staffing and clear program guidelines so the nation isn’t caught flat-footed for the next crisis. Biden stressed Friday that his American Rescue Plan is making a difference and that by the middle of this week, 130 million households will have received their stimulus payments, with more funds on the way to schools, small businesses and local communities. One of the areas with clear glitches is the disbursement of the latest round of stimulus payments. About 30 million Americans who should have automatically received the $1,400 payments are still waiting, more than three weeks after Biden signed the $1.9 trillion relief package. These people do not normally file tax returns because their income is so low, they don’t usually need to. But the federal government has their information to send them their stimulus payments, because they currently receive Social Security retirement, survivor or disability payments; or Supplemental Security Income, Railroad Retirement Board or Veterans Affairs benefits. The Internal Revenue Service said it was delayed in sending out these payments because it was waiting for information from the Social Security Administration and other government agencies. However, the December stimulus payments did not have the same holdup. The IRS said that it was doing everything it could to expedite the process and that the payments for the remaining Social Security beneficiaries should arrive in bank accounts by Wednesday. The agency had to recheck who was eligible for payments in the new tax year, an extra hurdle that didn’t exist in December, according to a senior administration official who spoke on the condition of anonymity because they weren’t authorized to speak publicly.

President Biden’s infrastructure plan would turbocharge the country’s transition from fossil fuels, using the muscle and vast resources of the federal government to intervene in electricity markets, speed the growth of solar and wind energy, and foster technological breakthroughs in clean power, the Washington Post reported. The linchpin of Biden’s plan, which he detailed yesterday, is the creation of a national standard requiring utilities to use a specific amount of solar, wind and other renewable energy to power American homes, businesses and factories. The amount would increase over time, cutting the nation’s use of coal, gas and oil over the next 15 years. While 30 states and the District of Columbia already direct their utilities to include some portion of renewable energy, Biden’s strategy would amount to the most sweeping federal intervention in the electricity sector in generations. Biden said that his plan would confront climate change, while putting the U.S. ahead of its economic competitors. “It’s going to boost America’s innovative edge in markets where global leadership is up for grabs,” he said. Biden’s “Energy Efficiency and Clean Electricity Standard” would require congressional approval and is likely to face staunch opposition from Republicans. It is also unclear whether it could be included as part of a budget reconciliation bill, which would require just 51 votes for approval in the Senate. Even though it would require spending tax dollars, its primary impact would be on the private sector.

President Joe Biden on Saturday signed the “COVID-19 Bankruptcy Relief Extension Act” into law to extend provisions providing financially distressed consumers and small businesses greater access to bankruptcy relief. The legislation will extend personal and small business bankruptcy relief provisions that were part of last year's CARES Act through March 27, 2022. Some of the key provisions of last year's relief packages were the increased debt limit to $7.5 million for small business debtors electing to file under subchapter V and allowing individuals to seek COVID-19–related hardship modifications, among other changes. With the CARES Act bankruptcy provisions originally due to sunset on March 27, the House of Representatives on Friday afternoon passed the Senate-amended version of H.R. 1651, the “COVID-19 Bankruptcy Relief Extension Act of 2021,” which passed by unanimous consent in the Senate on Wednesday. The Senate struck a provision from the original bill that would have extended the bankruptcy provisions of December's “Consolidated Appropriations Act of 2021” (CAA) that are due to sunset on December 27.

Michigan residents whose unemployment claims were wrongfully rejected as fraudulent by a computer system can sue the system’s developers and state officials, a federal judge has ruled, the Associated Press reported. Five plaintiffs sued FAST Enterprises LLC, CSG Government Solutions and five state employees in 2017, alleging that the staffers’ actions and flaws with the automated computer system put them at financial risk and even bankruptcy. In an opinion issued on Thursday, U.S. District Judge David M. Lawson dismissed one plaintiff and three defendants but ruled that the case will move forward. State officials have acknowledged that at least 20,000 Michigan residents — and possibly as many as 40,000 — were wrongly accused of fraud between 2013 and 2015 by a $47 million computer system, purchased from FAST Enterprises, that the state operated without human supervision and with an error rate as high as 93%. The system allegedly made an excessive percentage of fraud determinations between 2013 and 2015 during then-Gov. Rick Snyder’s administration, even after the errors were pointed out by staffers, Judge Lawson’s opinion states.