More than 7million Americans will lose federal unemployment benefits today and an additional 3million will stop receiving a $300 weekly boost on checks as emergency COVID payments expire.
Four types of specialized unemployment payments that were created because of COVID end on Monday.
They are; the Federal Pandemic Unemployment Compensation ($300 weekly boost on existing payments), Pandemic Emergency Unemployment Compensation (for those who already exhausted their state unemployment benefits), Mixed Earners Unemployment Compensation ($100-per-week for people who previously worked as a contractor and employee) and Pandemic Unemployment Assistance (which widened who could apply for unemployment).
Today, 18 months after they were first created, Americans will no longer be able to claim any of them.
Many say the expiry is overdue and that the inflated benefits drove a labor shortage because people could make more money doing nothing than they did in certain jobs.
The end of the payments comes after an abysmal jobs report in August with just 235,000 new jobs added to the economy - 765,000 fewer than the previous month.
Unemployment benefits for 7million people who were put out of work by COVID will end on Monday after 18 months. Some businesses say it helped drive a labor shortage, because the payments were so high
The unemployment rate at the start of COVID was the highest on record at nearly 15 percent. It has now dropped below 6 percent again
Both the public and private sectors suffered in COVID-19 with jobs dropping off suddenly as entire industries shut down
Job growth slowed suddenly in August - the month before the payments were ending - after months of progress. Biden blamed it on the Delta variant and people not getting vaccinated
Biden blamed it on the spread of the Delta variant and the number of people who are still not vaccinated. He then also tried to claim it was proof that his economic recovery plan was working.
Earlier in the summer, he said the incentives were keeping people from rejoining the workforce and told a
