Since long before anyone in the United States had heard of coronavirus, social welfare provisions, such as TANF, food stamps, and unemployment benefits have been under attack. The most common claim being they make people dependent on welfare instead of encouraging them to seek work. Since the late ‘70s, there has been a bipartisan consensus in the U.S. on this issue with Ronald Reagan inventing welfare queens in the 1980s and Bill Clinton signing welfare reform which made many benefits means tested.
So, when Congress passed the CARES Act back in March, which included a temporary boost in unemployment benefits for people affected by the pandemic, there was bound to be controversy. It was big news that some people were actually earning more money through enhanced jobless benefits than they were when they were employed full-time.
However, it is clear that the Pandemic Unemployment Assistance (PUA) staved off mass evictions, mortgage and loan defaults, boosted consumer spending, and generally ensured slightly less instability in everyday Americans’ lives. Unfortunately, the PUA was allowed to expire at the end of July, throwing millions of workers’ lives into chaos just as the coronavirus swept through some of the most populous states.
This has been bad news all around as more and more of the job loss has become permanent and corporations continue to shed jobs or are planning to as soon as they won’t be penalized by the stipulations set out in Congress’s spring bills addressing coronavirus.
But new research is showing that unemployment benefits and enhanced jobless security is not the deterrent employers believe it to be. There is plenty of anecdotal evidence to suggest as such, and now, according to the New York Times, there is data driven evidence to back this up.
Reporting over the weekend, the Times writers suggested that the reasons people are not returning to work is multifaceted and have little to do with greedy or lazy workers committing fraud. As we’ve noted in this blog before, the record employment numbers under the Obama and Trump administrations were bolstered by tens of millions of freelancers, gig workers, and the growing “precariat “class, and it is those jobs especially that are not coming back anytime soon. Compounding matters for many workers, familial obligations, such as childcare and elderly care far outweigh returning to work.
The colder months approach and fears of another spike in infections loom. And if the country’s previous efforts to curb the spread are any indication, unemployment assistance will remain a vital feature for any eventual recovery. And if you needed any convincing, this is the kind of opportunity available in the gig economy for all those out of work freelancers.
