The main problem with this line of thinking is that it simply isn’t true and, perhaps, holds less water than it ever has. In the past year alone, study after study has debunked the myth that the emergency benefits and occasional payments provided by the government are disincentivizing people from returning to the labor force en masse. “We find no evidence that high UI [unemployment insurance] replacement rates drove job losses or slowed rehiring,” read one study by Yale economists last summer, back when enhanced federal unemployment benefits were $600 a week — or double the current amount. In a separate study of unemployed workers without a college degree last year, Arindrajit Dube at the University of Massachusetts at Amherst, found no evidence that the additional pandemic compensation passed under the Cares Act last year “held back the labor market recovery.”