• Parts of California go into lockdown through Christmas,
INDIANAPOLIS — Tina Morton recently faced a choice: Pay bills or buy a birthday gift for a child. Derrisa Green is falling farther behind on rent. Sylvia Soliz has had her electricity cut off.
Unemployment has forced aching decisions on millions of Americans and their families in the face of a rampaging viral pandemic that has closed shops and restaurants, paralyzed travel and left millions jobless for months. Now, their predicaments stand to grow bleaker yet if Congress fails to extend two unemployment programs that are set to expire the day after Christmas.
If no agreement is reached in negotiations taking place on Capitol Hill, more than 9 million people will lose federal jobless aid that averages about $320 a week and that typically serves as their only source of income.
Ms. Green, 39, and her husband are among them. An end to their unemployment benefits would force them to keep missing rent payments on their home in Dyer, Ind., near Chicago. The couple have eight children. Ms. Green’s husband is a self-employed truck driver whose business disappeared when the pandemic erupted in the spring. Only in October did he start to pick up occasional work.
He now receives about $235 a week in unemployment aid. Even so, “all of our bills are late,” Ms. Green said. They’ve received several shutoff notices from utilities before managing to pay just before servicewas to be cut off.
“That’s really scary,” Ms. Green said, “because what are we going to do when we lose the unemployment money?”
The end of jobless aid is approaching at an especially perilous time. Job growth slowed sharply in November, and the resurgence of viral cases appears to be out of control across the country.
Even with the prospect of a vaccine being widely distributed in coming months, economists say the picture will worsen before it improves. Many foresee a net loss of jobs in December for the first time since April.
On Friday, Presidentelect Joe Biden called on Congress to approve a bipartisan $908 billion package that would establish a $300-a-week jobless benefit; send aid to states and localities; help schools and universities; revive subsidies for businesses; and support transit systems and airlines.
More than 20 million people are now receiving unemployment benefits. More than half are beneficiaries of two programs that were part of rescue aid legislation Congress enacted in March.
One program made selfemployed and contract workers eligible for jobless aid for the first time and provided 39 weeks of support. The other program supplied 13 weeks of extended benefits to the 26 weeks that most states provide.
About 9.1 million people who are receiving aid from those programs will be cut off Dec. 26, according to a report from the Century Foundation, a progressive think tank. An additional 4.4 million are expected to exhaust all 39 weeks by year’s end. If Congress agrees to provide more weeks of aid and to revive both programs, those beneficiaries could keep receiving aid next year.
That would be a godsend for Sylvia Soliz, of Corpus Christi, Texas. Ms. Soliz, 36, has received an eviction notice. Her electricity also has been cut off.
In March, Ms. Soliz was laid off from her job as a nurse’s assistant at a senior living facility. She’s now receiving $414 in jobless aid every two weeks. With four children, that doesn’t go very far.
“The day I get it, it’s already gone because my kids need so many things,” Ms. Soliz said. “Of course, I have to pay a portion to whatever bill I have, so that way I can stretch it out. But every time another check comes in, it’s another bill.”
Other government protections will also expire at the end of this year, including a federal moratorium on evictions for renters. A suspension of payments on federal student loans will expire at the end of January.
“I am very afraid of people facing homelessness — that’s our top concern,” said Andrew Stettner, a senior fellow at the Century Foundation. “It’s a terrible, unforced policy error to make. It will slow the recovery that we’re having by cutting off these benefits so early.”
About one in six renters are behind on their rent, according to a survey from the Census Bureau. And 12% of adults say their families didn’t have enough to eat at some point in the past week, the survey found. That’s up from just 3.7% in 2019, according to the left-leaning Center on Budget and Policy Priorities.
A wrenching set of choices has confronted Keli Paaske, who lives in the Kansas City area. Since being furloughed in the spring from her sales job at a company that makes fire doors, Ms. Paaske, 56, has cut back her grocery budget.
She thought she’d be called back once the virus waned. But when her boss phoned in August, it was with a different message: Her job had been eliminated.
Without unemployment aid, Ms. Paaske said she may seek financial help from her parents, who are in their 80s, something she has resisted doing. If she doesn’t find a job by March, she said, she’ll stop leasing her car.
A cutoff of jobless aid would disproportionately affect Black Americans, according to data from the Century Foundation. About 18% of unemployment aid recipients are Black, though Black Americans make up just 12% of the workforce. More than 57% of recipients are white. Nearly 13% are Latino. (There is no demographic data on about one-fifth of recipients.)
About 9.1 million people who are receiving aid from those programs will be cut off Dec. 26, according to a report from the Century Foundation. An additional 4.4 million are expected to exhaust all 39 weeks by year’s end.