6 Jobless Workers. 6 Different Salary Levels. Zero End in Sight.
As the $600 unemployment benefit expires, we spoke to six workers whose lost incomes range from $13,000 to $150,000-plus a year
Millions of Americans who are barely staying afloat are about to lose their lifelines. Unless the Senate acts quickly to extend the extra $600 federal weekly unemployment benefit— part of the $2.2 trillion Coronavirus Aid, Relief, and Economic Security Act passed in late March — it will fully expire tomorrow, cutting unemployment benefits by half or more. Republicans just proposed a drastic reduction to $200 per week, arguing that the extra benefit disincentivizes people from looking for work — and setting up a fight with Democrats who have been pushing to continue the full $600. The loss or extreme reduction of that subsidy may spell devastation for millions of Americans and cost our faltering economy an injection of billions of dollars.
As the coronavirus pandemic has hobbled entire sectors with no end in sight, nearly 30 million Americans — about one in five workers — have been laid off. The suffering is widespread but unevenly distributed: The crisis has only underscored the country’s fault lines of inequity. Women and Hispanic and Black Americans have borne the brunt of the financial catastrophe…
