Struggling Houstonians desperate for any relief
As stimulus negotiations drag on, some forced to take reduced hours as others drain their savings
For Adan Aurioles, a senior who had no plans to retire anytime soon but lost his job three months ago, any help from the Biden administration’s proposed $1.9 trillion stimulus package could help him out financially.
For Rene Trujillo, a 47-yearold flight attendant who lives in the Willowbrook area, a $1,400 check or a program could assist with his mortgage payments or the cost of groceries for his family of four.
For Mercedes Taylor, 69, a Transportation Security Administration guard at Hobby Airport who’s been unable to find a second job, a government check could secure a place to call her own home or, at the very least, cover a visit to the dentist or pharmacy.
As President Joe Biden and congressional Democrats forge ahead with a sweeping coronavirus stimulus plan, politicians in Washington are debating whether the costly plan has the right mix of assistance and programs to beat COVID-19 and revive the nation’s sputtering economy.
In the Houston area, meanwhile, interviews with more than a half-dozen people reveal the need for assistance as negotiations continue. Some are working reduced hours, some are counting the days since they last were employed. While those interviewed said the $1,400 checks that Biden is pushing for would help them, several said they would need more assistance beyond one-time pay
ments as they have learned the limit of every dollar over the last year.
Biden has resisted GOP calls to scale back the package, which Democrats say is also critical to vaccination, testing and school reopening efforts.
The U.S. House voted 219209 on Friday to approve a budget plan that will clear the way for Democrats to pass the measure without support from congressional Republicans. The vote came hours after the U.S. Senate approved the same measure 51-50, with Vice President Kamala Harris casting the tie-breaking vote. Senators also voted to bar a minimum wage increase during the pandemic, signaling that piece may be in jeopardy.
“Are we going to say to millions of Americans who are out of work — many out of work for six months or longer, who have been scared by this economic and public health crisis — ‘Don’t worry, hang on, things are going to get better’?” Biden said in remarks at the White House on Friday. “That’s the Republican answer right now. I can’t in good conscience do that. Too many people in the nation have already suffered for too long.”
The need, it appears, could not be more pressing. Last month, 79 percent of people who responded to a Pew Research Center survey said another economic relief package was needed. Another survey conducted by the center in August found that a third of respondents had used money from their savings or retirement to pay bills, and roughly 1 in 6 had borrowed money from a friend or relative or received food from a food bank.
“Millions of Americans are going hungry,” Robert Reich, a University of California, Berkeley, professor who served as President Bill Clinton’s labor secretary, said in a tweet. “These are not stimulus checks. They’re survival checks.”
Going big
Biden is pushing his farreaching plan two months after Congress passed a $900 billion relief package that then-President Donald Trump and congressional Democrats said didn’t go far enough in providing direct payments — it included $600 checks for most Americans and a temporary supplemental unemployment benefit of $300 per week, down from the $600 that was covered by a previous measure.
Biden’s plan would distribute $1,400 per person for those under certain income levels, extend emergency unemployment insurance through September, increase the supplemental unemployment benefit to $400 a week, provide more money to schools to reopen and increase the minimum wage to $15 per hour, among other proposals, according to the New York Times.
“People across Houston have told me about the urgent need to provide additional coronavirus relief, including direct payments for families, federal funding to support testing and vaccine distribution, support for small businesses, enhanced unemployment benefits, and funding for local governments and frontline workers,” U.S. Rep. Lizzie Fletcher, D-Houston, said in a statement. “I will continue to advocate for our community and our country as we face these challenges together.”
But the plan has drawn criticism from some elected officials who say it won’t stimulate the economy and amounts to excessive spending.
U.S. Rep. Kevin Brady, who represents The Woodlands and ranks as the top Republican on the House Ways and Means Committee, called the Biden plan “another economic blind buffalo” that would not save small businesses or get people back to work. He has repeatedly questioned how many jobs the proposal would create and suggested it would encourage the jobless to stay at home.
He’s said the paid-leave mandate — the plan would allow for 14 weeks of paid leave for caregivers faced with closed schools or day care centers and provide a $1,400 leave benefit for some — would kill jobs.
“Special interests and liberals are cheering,” Brady said in a statement when the plan was unveiled. “The jobless and Main Street are left shaking their heads.”
Some recent polls have showed much support for the package. More than twothirds — 68 percent — of 1,075 Americans surveyed for a Quinnipiac University poll released Wednesday backed Biden’s proposed bill.
‘We survived’
As Democrats endeavor to use a budget mechanism called “reconciliation” to pass the measure without GOP support, hopefully in March, many area residents continue struggling.
Trujillo, the flight attendant, learned this week that his employer, United Airlines, was planning to impose furloughs starting in April. He fielded calls from concerned colleagues as his two kids learned from home.
The news arrived two days after he had returned to work on Monday, following three months of unemployment claims and mourning. His brother, a 42year-old nurse in South Texas, died in early September after becoming infected with COVID-19.
“I can’t say we got by. I just say we survived,” Trujillo said, noting that he dipped into his 401(k) savings and borrowed money from his mother while outlining ways to optimize use of every dollar and cutting on spending. “We are strong in so many ways, but even that amount of pressure was pretty overwhelming for us.”
Taylor, the TSA security guard, saw her 40-hour work weeks, which depend on the number of passengers traveling, plummet before picking up in the summer, only to fall again. She’s now clocking in about 30 hours a week and sleeping in her car, she said.
“Truly, I don’t understand Washington. How is it that you think $1,200…” she interrupted herself to say it pained her to think about kids being hungry or displaced because of their parents’ current plight. “It’s not about me. If I am having it tough and it’s just me, just imagine the same salary and you have to divide among seven people, five people.” “It’s horrible,” she added. Aurioles, 66, estimated he had been out of work for about three months. He said he had not looked for a job much in person due to concerns of falling sick at his age, but added that he would like to continue working and not retire yet.
“Right now, we can’t go out because we are a little scared of the pandemic,” he said, wearing a mask, from his front door at an apartment complex off the Gulf Freeway. “It’s dangerous.”
Counting the days
Mark Grady, a 42-year-old stagehand whose primary job is with the Houston Grand Opera, has thought about March 13 every day since that date in 2020, the last time he worked doing what he loves.
Grady called himself “lucky” because his wife has been able to keep working and he’s found gigs throughout since he was laid off. He’s managed to work about 20 days in the entertainment industry since then, he said, in addition to taking on some other small jobs.
“The only lifeline that we have is the unemployment and the stimulus,” he said.
Those in the entertainment industry are accustomed to slow periods of work, he said, so people learn to save in preparation. He was not concerned until his savings started dwindling.
The situation further scares him, he said, because he was originally told he would return to work in August. Then December. Then maybe May. Now it’s maybe August again.
“We go from making $80,000 a year to $521 a week now,” he said.
Meanwhile, he’s had friends become infected with COVID-19. Others have contemplated suicide. And yet others have started to struggle with post-traumatic stress disorder caused by a situation that’s still grinding on. And his creative out, which was also his work, remains inaccessible.
“I want to go back to work. I want to do the things that I’ve been training for a very long time — that I’m certified — to do,” he said, acknowledging that some people have told him to find a “real job.”
“The fear for a lot of us,” he continued, “is we are going to be the forgotten ones.”