Author: Nahee Rosso

On June 17, President Biden signed into law legislation recognizing Juneteenth National Independence Day, June 19, as a legal public holiday. Juneteenth celebrates the end of slavery in the U.S. and commemorates the date in 1865 when the Union army arrived in Galveston, TX, to enforce the Emancipation Proclamation two years after issuance. The new law deems Juneteenth the eleventh “federal holiday” in the nation. The law does not directly impose any obligations on private employers. Rather, the law governs the obligations of the federal government to its own employees. No federal wage-and-hour statute requires purely private employers to give…

Short Answer: It’s Not Clear Congress passed on March 10 and the president signed into law on March 11 the $1.9 trillion COVID-relief bill, which provides $350 billion for state and local governments, $168 billion for K-12 schools and higher education, $30.5 billion for public transit and $8 billion for airports. The bill, however, appears to dedicate little, if any, funding to new public or private construction investment projects—infrastructure or buildings. Generally speaking, the entities receiving these funds have broad discretion to use them however they see fit. It is unclear, consequently, how the vast majority of these funds will…