| | | | | |  | | By Rebecca Rainey | With help from Eleanor Mueller Editor's Note: Weekly Shift is a weekly version of POLITICO Pro's daily Employment & Immigration policy newsletter, Morning Shift. POLITICO Pro is a policy intelligence platform that combines the news you need with tools you can use to take action on the day's biggest stories. Act on the news with POLITICO Pro. | | | President-elect Joe Biden is slated to release a trillion dollar economic relief plan this week, pointing to the dreadful December jobs report to call for more "immediate relief." In a little over a week, Biden will be inheriting one of the weakest U.S. labor markets in decades. The economy lost 140,000 jobs last month, ending seven months of gains. The pain was felt the most in the service industry "where restaurants and bars slashed 372,000 positions as cold weather and new lockdowns limited demand," our Ben White reports. "Government jobs declined by 45,000 amid growing budget crunches around the nation." | 
President-elect Joe Biden delivers remarks in Wilmington, Del., on Jan. 8, 2021. | Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images | What will Joe do? In a speech Friday, Biden called for $2,000 in direct payments to Americans and "tens of billions of dollars" in more aid to state and local governments — demands that he may be able to achieve with full Democratic control of Washington. Democrats' surprise victories in the Georgia runoff elections on Tuesday split the Senate 50-50, with Kamala Harris ready to break any tie after she's sworn in as vice president. NOT SO FAST. . . Democrats don't have a filibuster-proof majority in the upper chamber, and at least one moderate member of their caucus, Sen. Joe Manchin of West Virginia, has already suggested he may not be on board with the beefed up stimulus checks. "That's not a yes or no question," Manchin said on CNN's "State of the Union" yesterday when asked by host Jake Tapper whether he supported sending $2,000 stimulus checks to those earning $75,000 or less, our Kelsey Tamborrino reports. MOVEMENT ON MINIMUM WAGE? Biden also said Friday he hopes Democratic control of Congress "will raise the odds of prompt action" on increasing the federal minimum wage to $15 an hour. "No one who works 40 hours a week in America should still live below the poverty line," Biden said. "They are entitled to a minimum of $15 an hour." BUT FIRST, IMMIGRATION: The president-elect says he plans to introduce an immigration bill "immediately." It's not clear if that will be a larger reform package or a more narrow bill targeted at Dreamers — undocumented immigrants brought to the U.S. at a young age, according to our transition reporting team. Biden's immigration policy advisers also met with Reps. Joaquin Castro (D-Texas), Raul Ruiz (D-Calif.) and Linda Sánchez (D-Calif.) about a week ago to discuss legislation, a source with knowledge tells LAURA BARRÓN-LÓPEZ. MORE: "As job losses mount, states struggle to pay extended benefits, " from your host Rebecca. GOOD MORNING. It's Monday, Jan. 11, and this is Morning Shift, your tipsheet on employment and immigration news. Send tips, exclusives and suggestions to emueller@politico.com and rrainey@politico.com. Follow us on Twitter at @Eleanor_Mueller and @RebeccaARainey. | | | | HAPPENING THURSDAY - THE COVID-19 VACCINE ROLLOUT: What are the logistical challenges facing the coronavirus immunization campaign? Who is overseeing the process and working to overcome obstacles to ensure that vulnerable groups have access to the vaccine? Join POLITICO for a virtual discussion on the outgoing Trump administration's plan to prioritize lower-income, rural, and communities of color for vaccine distribution and what the Biden administration can do to streamline plans and fill in any gaps. REGISTER HERE. | | | | | | | | CRA BACK IN PLAY: It's time to talk about the Congressional Review Act. Democrats have gained a razor-thin majority in the Senate, but they have just enough votes to use the legislative tool to undo several rules pushed by the Trump administration last year. The law creates a 60-day grace period after a rule is promulgated for Congress to pass a resolution to revoke it — and the days only count when Congress is in session. That means lawmakers will have until mid- to late-spring to consider whether to revoke any of Trump's last-minute rules, as our Kyle Cheney has written. In January and December alone, the Trump administration has issued a flurry of last-minute federal rules including: adding more barriers to asylum, abandoning the H-1B lottery selection process, rewriting the fiduciary rule, making it easier for businesses to classify their workers as "independent contractors," allowing tipped employees to work longer hours while making the subminimum wage, among other changes. THERE'S A CATCH: Under the CRA, federal agencies are prohibited from subsequently issuing a regulation that is "substantially the same" as the one rejected by Congress — a bar that hasn't been tested in court. FLASHBACK: You'll recall that the Trump administration did reissue at least one rule that had been CRA'd before. In late 2019, the DOL enacted a rule allowing states to drug-test a wider pool of applicants for unemployment insurance. The rule allowed drug testing "in an occupation that regularly conducts" such tests, an expansion of an Obama-era rule repealed by the Republican Congress under the CRA in 2017, that called for drug tests only in a few narrow circumstances. The Trump administration said the rule didn't run afoul of the CRA because it would allow states to "require drug testing for a far larger group of [unemployment compensation] applicants than the previous final rule permitted." So what will the newly Democratic-controlled Congress do? Amit Narang, a regulatory policy advocate at the left-leaning group Public Citizen, told Morning Shift back when the drug testing rule was issued in 2019 that the Trump administration's interpretation could set a precedent that would allow a more liberal administration to resurrect in "even stronger form" any regulations that Congress revoked under the CRA. | | | CHICAGO GOES BACK TO SCHOOL — SETTING UP FIGHT WITH TEACHERS UNION: Chicago Public Schools will reopen for some students today "amid an escalating clash between city officials, who are threatening to withhold pay from teachers who do not show up, and the powerful Chicago Teachers Union, which contends that schools are not properly outfitted to combat the coronavirus," Dawn Reiss reports for The Washington Post. "Thad Goodchild, lawyer for the teachers union, said it would be illegal if the district withholds pay for work being done remotely, as it has threatened to do, or if the district locks teachers out of Google Classroom so they are unable to teach their students virtually if they don't return in person," Reiss writes. The union and the district met over the weekend, but Goodchild said "a strike was possible if CPS and the mayor retaliate against the teachers who have been directed to report in person on Monday' but choose to stay remote," according to Reiss. The union, which represents 25,000 teachers, has gone on strike before. In 2019 the union went on strike, missing 11 school days. Mayor Lori Lightfoot eventually agreed to reduce class sizes, among other demands from the union. | | | BIDEN FORMALLY INTRODUCES WALSH AS LABOR NOMINEE: Biden formally introduced Boston Mayor Marty Walsh as his nominee for Labor secretary Friday afternoon — a decision that your host and Tyler Pager scooped Thursday. Workers' rights have been eroded for "a long time," Walsh said. "Now, we have the opportunity to put power back" in their hands. On the agenda: "We can defend workers' rights, we can strengthen collective bargaining, we can grow union membership, we can create millions of good-paying jobs with investments in infrastructure, clean energy and in high-tech manufacturing — along with the workforce training to help get those people into those good jobs." Watch the full event. | | | MANUFACTURING STRAPPED FOR LABOR: American manufacturers are "struggling to find enough people to staff their plants," shortages that are "choking supply chains and delaying delivery of everything from car parts to candles just as demand is picking up," Sharon Terlep, Ben Foldy and Bob Tita report for The Wall Street Journal. Despite record-high unemployment, "many employers are having trouble hiring enough workers," they write. "For manufacturers, staffing shortages have been caused by factors including a surge in new jobs tied to e-commerce—many of which offer better pay than factory work—and absences caused by Covid or family obligations such as child care." | | | | KEEP UP WITH THE FIRST 100 DAYS OF THE BIDEN ADMINISTRATION WITH TRANSITION PLAYBOOK: It was a dark week in American history, and a new administration will have to pick up the pieces. Transition Playbook brings you inside the last days of this crucial transfer of power, tracking the latest from President-elect Biden and his growing administration. Written for political insiders, this scoop-filled newsletter breaks big news and analyzes the appointments, people, and the emerging power centers of the new administration. Track the transition and the first 100 days of the incoming Biden administration. Subscribe today. | | | | | | | | TRUMP IMPEACHMENT?: House Speaker Nancy Pelosi has said if Vice President Mike Pence fails to invoke the 25th Amendment to remove President Donald Trump for inciting the deadly riot at the Capitol last week, she will move forward with impeachment proceedings, our Congress team reports. "Pence so far has shown no willingness to meet Democrats' demands, making an impeachment vote almost certain this week." | | | SWEEPING ASYLUM RULE BLOCKED IN COURT: "A federal judge on Friday blocked a Trump administration rule that would have put wide-ranging restrictions on asylum eligibility days before it was set to take effect," Michelle Hackman reports for The Wall Street Journal . "The rule, which the administration published in December, would have made it all but impossible for most current asylum applicants to win similar cases in the future and would have eased the path for the government to quickly deport them." The decision gives the Biden administration several routes to ditch the rule, Hackman writes. Background: The Trump administration rule sought to allow immigration judges to more easily claim that applications are "frivolous," a determination that bars individuals from any form of immigration relief, as well as deny asylum requests without a hearing if they believe they lack certain evidence. The rule would have also raised the standard for "persecution" that an asylum-seeker must prove they will suffer if returned to their home country to "a severe level of harm." More on that from your host Rebecca. MORE: "Trump to visit U.S.-Mexico border to laud border wall," from the Associated Press | | | — "This Could Be the Best Year on Record for Job Growth," from The Wall Street Journal — "Why Yellen's Wall Street windfall is getting a pass," from POLITICO — " For Immigrants Watching a Mob Storm the Capitol, a Sense of Shock and Shame," from The New York Times — "Companies Examine Capitol Riot for Security Lessons," from The Wall Street Journal — "What can a small union for well-paid Google workers accomplish? Quite a bit, experts say," from MarketWatch — ICYMI: "IRS says misrouted stimulus payments now reaching taxpayers," from POLITICO — "Richard Cooper, Harvard economist who advised presidents, dies at 86," from The Washington Post — " Pressure Grows for States to Open Vaccines to More Groups of People," from The New York Times THAT'S ALL FOR MORNING SHIFT! | | | | Follow us on Twitter | | | | Follow us | | | | |
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