Pressure rises for thousands of unemployed
Federal aid runs out, job prospects remain bleak
Thousands of unemployed Floridians are facing financial calamity as a frayed safety net gives way at a time when the coronavirus crisis is growing worse.
They’ve lost $600 in federal aid; their job prospects remain bleak; their bills are piling up; and a program designed to help small business keep them on the payroll will run out in two weeks.
More than a quarter of adults said they missed rent payments last month or have little or no confidence they can make next month’s rent or mortgage deadlines, according to a Census Bureau survey.
The loss of $600 in assistance will cause 41% of the unemployed to spend more than half their incomes on rent, raising the risk they’ll be evicted, according to an analysis by Zillow, the national real estate search firm.
In Florida, the unemployed are left with a maximum $275 a week in unemployment benefits, one of the lowest amounts in the nation. State law provides the money for only 12 weeks, the shortest of any state.
Sandra Speier, a professional trainer who worked with senior citizens in South Florida, has been jobless since March. A single mother of a teen-aged son, she had been collecting $125 in state benefits along with the $600 in federal money.
“I have no contingency plan right now,” she said. “I don’t know what’s going to happen.”
While households try to figure out where their next dollars would come from to pay rent, mortgage, utility and other bills, lawmakers in Washington remain far apart on whether to extend the $600 payments through January as demanded by Democrats, or to cut them back to $200 through the end of September under a plan from Senate Republicans.
The Republicans’ plan would leave Speier with a total of $325 a week, nowhere near what she
needs, she said. “The GOP is not being realistic,” she said. “They all need to live on $325 a week.”
Unemployment applications
Some households with one of two principal wage earners unemployed are getting by. But an aggravating factor continues to be an inability to obtain a response to jobless applications filed with Florida’s unemployment insurance agency.
“Luckily, I have been able to work from home during the pandemic, but my husband, who is diabetic, lost his job,” said Olga Jiron of Miami, a member of Parents-Together, a Washington, D.C. -based national family advocacy group. “I’ve spent hours trying to help him apply for unemployment online, but it hasn’t worked. He hasn’t received state unemployment or the extra $600 in federal benefits.”
Jiron said it is uncertain “how long we can survive on just my income alone.”
She said the couple, who have a daughter who just graduated from high school, “just have to continue hoping we can get unemployment for my husband.”
Across the state and nation, millions of jobless workers had relied on the payments since April to help them repair income losses caused by coronavirus-related business closures.
The program, which was part of the Coronavirus Aid, Relief and Economic Security Act that Congress passed in March, technically expires Friday. But most states, including Florida, made their final $600 payments on July 25.
The payment ended early because the states pay their benefits according to weekly timelines that end on Saturdays or Sundays. Since July 31 falls on a Friday, the states were advised by the federal government that payouts had to end over the previous weekend.
One saving grace is that another federal program — Pandemic Emergency Unemployment Compensation — will continue to fund an extra 13 weeks of benefits to those people who have exhausted their initial 12 weeks of state benefits in Florida, bringing the total to a potential 25 weeks of assistance.
Floridians will need to apply for the benefits once the balance of their original claim has run its course, according to the DEO.
“That doesn’t go away on July 31,” Florida Sen. Jose Javier Rodriguez said during a Facebook Live appearance Monday.
Rodriguez warned Congress against relying on states — particularly Florida — to install another program that would require overwhelmed agencies such as the state’s Department of Economic Opportunity to calculate a person’s benefits through a new system.
Rodriguez noted that it took two months for the DEO to implement three federal programs under the Coronavirus Aid, Relief, and Economic Security Act, which was passed in March.
The programs included the $600 weekly payout.
Even now, many jobless workers who say they qualify for both state and federal benefits report that they never got a chance to collect money from Washington because they still have not received a response to state unemployment applications they filed as far back as March and April. In order to collect the federal money, applicants had to apply for state benefits first.
“Anything complicated we do not want to put on DEO’s plate,” Rodriguez said. “The state of Florida cannot handle having to do that,” he said of the Republicans’ plan.
While the federal program was in place, the DEO paid out just under $11.7 billion state and federal benefits to jobless workers.
But a strong majority of that money —more than $8.5 billion — came from Washington.
PPP expiring
Another key part of the federal relief act — the Payroll Protection Program supported by the U.S. Small Business Administration — is set to expire on Aug. 8 after being extended by Congress earlier this month.
According to a survey released Monday by the National Federation of Independent Business, many of the small businesses that used the money to keep employees on their payrolls are still under duress.
“Current economic conditions are putting significant stress on small business owners struggling to balance lower sales, expenses, and longer-term sustainability,” said Holly Wade, NFIB director of Research & Policy Analysis. “Even for those owners who have exhausted their PPP loan, the economic conditions have not yet returned to levels that can support business activity for many.”
Bill Herrle, the federation’s Florida director, said the situation remains dire for some businesses, which are still operating at reduced capacities or remain closed.
“Our members are determined to get through this, but the need for additional relief for these businesses is very real,” he said.