The shift away from the $300-per-week handout started earlier this month with Montana and South Carolina ending the boost. This week, Indiana, Oklahoma and Texas joined the fray to bring the total number of states\u00a0to 22<\/strong>.<\/p>\n According to the\u00a0Epoch Times<\/em><\/a>, “Alabama, Alaska, Arizona, Arkansas, Georgia, Idaho, Indiana, Iowa, New Hampshire, Mississippi, Missouri, Montana, North Dakota, Ohio, Oklahoma, South Carolina, South Dakota, Tennessee, Texas, Utah, West Virginia, and Wyoming\u2014all plan to end the $300 boost, along with other federal unemployment benefit programs, at some point this summer.”<\/p>\n On Monday, Texas Gov. Greg Abbott told the Biden administration that his state is “booming” and that employers are hiring in communities throughout the state.<\/p>\n “In fact, the amount of job openings in Texas is far greater than the number of Texans looking for employment,\u00a0making these unemployment benefits no longer necessary<\/strong>,”\u00a0he wrote<\/a>.<\/p>\n Other states, meanwhile, have announced\u00a0hiring incentives<\/strong>\u00a0to get people back to work.<\/p>\n New Hampshire\u2019s Republican Gov. Chris Sununu said in a\u00a0Wednesday tweet<\/a>\u00a0that\u00a0\u201ctoday we launched our SUMMER STIPENDS program to get people back to work, and announced we\u2019re ending our participation in federal unemployment programs.\u201d<\/em><\/p>\n The Summer Stipends\u00a0program offers<\/a>\u00a0$500 to $1,000 one-time bonuses for individuals who get a job that pays $25 an hour or less, and stay in that job for at least eight weeks.<\/em><\/p>\n \u201cLet\u2019s get back to work,\u201d Sununu said. –<\/em>Epoch Times<\/em><\/a><\/p><\/blockquote>\n As we noted earlier today, despite the dismal payrolls print,\u00a0initial jobless claims are just about to\u00a0pre-COVID levels<\/a><\/strong>, with a better than expected 444,000 Americas filing for first-time unemployment benefits last week\u00a0despite\u00a08.1 million job openings<\/a><\/strong>.<\/p>\n In an open letter to the nation’s governors, House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy (R-CA) and several colleagues urged states to “put America back to work” by ending the weekly pandemic stipend.<\/p>\n “Unfortunately, we are now seeing the negative consequences of these misaligned economic incentives,” reads the letter. “An estimated 40 percent of the unemployed now earn more staying at home than working, causing severe labor shortages across the country” and impacting several industries.<\/p>\n![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.zerohedge.com\/s3\/files\/inline-images\/hiring%201.jpg?itok=ciPVM0-m\")
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