The end of extra unemployment won’t solve the labor shortage—here’s what will

With the supplemental federal pandemic unemployment benefits now ended across the country, employers and lawmakers who favored the cut off are hoping their predictions come true: that ending the extra cash will drive those who have not returned to work will get back into the workforce. But for much of the country—half of all states—those benefits have long been over, and we’ve yet to see a rush back to work. According to July jobless numbers, unemployment is still in the neighborhood of 5% or above in much of the Southeast, where the extra benefits in Alabama, Arkansas, Georgia, Mississippi, Florida and South Carolina all ended in June. In contrast, unemployment rates have remained consistently low across the Midwest and North Midwest—states where jobless rates historically hover in the 2-4% range—suggesting the extra payments did little to disincentivize the workforce in the first place.