These people want to get back to work but can’t — and fear losing a $300 weekly benefit will spell disaster
That hasn’t been the case. Though the Orlando, Florida, resident has been applying to at least five jobs every day on Indeed and Facebook Marketplace, she has yet to even be called in for an interview.
“I guess I’ll have to apply to 10 jobs. I’ll have to double it up,” said Bates, 40, who is starting to look for positions outside of hospitality. “I have to get a job.”
Bates is among the roughly 4.1 million people who will see their federal jobless payments end in coming weeks, according to an estimate by The Century Foundation. At least 19 states are also terminating two other pandemic unemployment benefits programs that provide compensation for the self-employed, freelancers, independent contractors, certain people affected by the coronavirus and those who’ve run out of their regular state benefits.
They point to a multitude of available job postings in their states to back up those claims. But the experience of people like Bates is a sign that getting people back to work isn’t so straightforward — and that the moves to cut off benefits will leave some people in dire straits.
Child care is a factor
Asilee Barnes, a Twinsburg, Ohio resident who will lose her $300 boost at the end of June, wants to work but doesn’t have anyone to watch her 3-year-old son.
Barnes had to leave her position as a technician at a microelectronics manufacturer early in the pandemic after her babysitter died from the coronavirus. Her situation is all the more complicated now that the school year has ended, requiring her to also find care for her 9-year-old son and 6-year-old daughter in order to take a job.
Asilee Barnes can’t work because of child care issues.
“If Covid hadn’t happened, I’d still be at work,” said Barnes, 33, who doesn’t have family or friends to turn to for help and is trying to get subsidized child care so she can go on interviews and start working. “Sure there are jobs, but what does that mean to me if I can’t get there because of child care?”
Without the $300 federal enhancement, Barnes will only receive $189 a week, which will make it hard for her to afford gas for her car, much less cover necessities for herself and her children.
Job listings but no interviews
Billy Litsey has driven tractor-trailers for nearly three decades — a skill that’s been in demand as the economy reopens. The Winter Springs, Florida, resident had been delivering coffee, donuts and other items to more than a dozen Dunkin Donuts stores until several of them shut down in October. And even though he’s been responding to emails and texts asking him to apply for open positions, he says he either doesn’t hear back or doesn’t wind up landing any work.
Litsey, who hasn’t driven trucks long-distance since the 1990s, called about a job with Coca-Cola three months ago but was informed that there were 1,000 applicants for two positions. He has applied to Target, gas stations and elsewhere but was told he’s overqualified. And temporary trucking jobs offer only $14 an hour, which would be a big pay cut for him.
Billy Litsey is finding trucking jobs in central Florida are “few and far between.”
The 46-year-old fears that he is being overlooked because of his age or because he hasn’t driven since last fall. He then had to borrow money from his mother to support his disabled wife and two of his children, one of whom is also disabled, until he began to receive the $300 federal boost to his roughly $233 weekly state payments earlier this year.
With the end of the federal supplement looming, he is considering returning to Louisville, Kentucky, where he used to live and is more confident he could get a better-paying trucking job. But he’s reluctant to leave his family because of their health, and he can’t afford to move them until he works for a few months.
“Even with my having 30 years of experience driving a semi, jobs here are few and far between,” said Litsey, of the situation in Florida. “So guys like me who do want to work can’t.”
Old jobs still haven’t come back
Jeff Good has worked in various managerial and production roles in the touring concert industry for decades. He doesn’t want to change careers just as more venues start to get booked, in hopes that he’ll land work in coming months.
Jeff Good hopes to land work soon but fears his pandemic unemployment benefits will run out first.
But the Nashville resident will no longer receive any payments after July 3, when the state terminates all federal pandemic benefits. After that, he says he’ll have to rely on savings until he can secure a gig.
