I'm Brian Lehrer. This is my daily politics podcast from WNYC Studios. It's Friday, August 6th.

Let's jump right in on these new unemployment numbers that just came out this morning for July,

and the bigger picture of what the

Delta variant and the expiration of extended unemployment benefits mean for people's ability to get

decent work, company's ability to find enough workers, and how much remote workers can or

are being forced to go back to work in person and discriminate it against even

if they're working from home. A few headlines to kick this off, the U.S. added nearly a million

jobs last month, and the unemployment rate fell below five and a half percent. New York Times

economy reporter Gina Smilich, who will join us in a minute, tweets that those

are solid headline numbers. However, they are mostly pre-Delta. Target and Walmart this week

announced that they will pay for college education costs for their employees, a sign that they

are having trouble recruiting or retaining enough people.

Amazon yesterday announced that it is delaying its return to office date until 2022.

Many other companies are doing similar things or grappling with what to do.

And just to throw another headline in, out of left field, the Federal Reserve Board is deciding

whether to issue its first ever digital dollar to compete with cryptocurrencies like Bitcoin.

With us now are Gina Smilak, New York Times correspondent, who covers the economy and the Fed.

Yes, she wrote that digital dollar story.

And Lauren Hirsch, Times correspondent for business, policy, and mergers and acquisitions

for the Maine New York Times and their deal book features. Among Lauren's recent articles are

ones on the rise of vaccine mandates to go back in person and one asking if

remote workers are beginning to face anti-work-home bias by their bosses harming, among other

...