The Daily - The Epidemic of Unemployment

Episode Date: June 24, 2020

Three months after mass layoffs began across America, 20 million Americans remain out of work because of the pandemic. Federal employment benefits are about to run out, and Congress can’t agree on more financial help. We called people struggling with unemployment to hear how they are doing. Guest: Julie Creswell, Sabrina Tavernise and Ben Casselman, reporters at The New York Times, spoke with Nicolle Nordman, Analía Rodríguez and Nakitta Long about being laid off. For more information on today’s episode, visit nytimes.com/thedaily Background reading: Some people have started to return to work, but the recovery is uneven. More than a million new jobless claims continue to be filed each week, and certain industries are far outpacing others in the rebound from the mass job losses in April.The unemployment rate isn’t the whole story when it comes to understanding the economic impact of the pandemic.

I got an email that said, let me find it and read it to you. The heading is attendance required. All in capitals, two exclamation points, WW business update meeting. Okay, so this is what the email says. Please join your territory manager for an important business update tomorrow, Thursday, May 14th at 4 p.m. Eastern, 3 p.m. Central via an audio only conference call. It is important that you make yourself available to attend this meeting. And then it says thank you in advance for your attendance. WW Field Management Team. So I worked my regular shift, dialed in at three o'clock.

So I worked my regular shift, dialed in at three o'clock. The territory manager reading from a script essentially said that they're restructuring the company based on changes that needed to be made for business decision reasons. And that at the end of that call, I would no longer be employed by the company and click. That was a threeminute phone call. And I just, I started crying. I mean, I've been with the company 18 years. We were fired in a three-minute call where we were muted. We weren't given any information. We were not treated with any empathy. We were not treated with any caring.

We weren't told how important we were to the company. We weren't thanked for our many years of service. We were just told, you're not important. We don't care. We don't care. From The New York Times, I'm Michael Barbaro. This is The Daily. Three months after mass layoffs began across the U.S., 20 million Americans remain out of work because of the pandemic,

federal unemployment benefits are about to run out, and Congress can't agree on a new package of financial help. Today, my colleagues speak to laid-off workers about the state of their unemployment. It's Wednesday, June 24th. 53 years old. I live in Homewood, Illinois. It's a suburb of Chicago, about 35 miles south of Chicago. I actually have a Juris Doctorate, so I was a lawyer, but I stopped working full-time back in 1993 because my daughter was born with an illness called cystic fibrosis, which is a genetic disease which causes a lot of complications to the lungs. And she needed a lot of care for her first several years. And I decided that rather than paying a nurse and a babysitter, I would stop working and stay home with her.

So all my degrees kind of just fell to the wayside and I ended working and stay home with her. So all my degrees kind of just fell to the wayside and I ended up staying at home with her. And can you tell me where were you working most recently? I was employed by Weight Watchers for the last 18 years. I had started out part-time once she got older and got that lung transplant, I went to work for them full-time and I had been working for them full-time for almost seven years now. Can you talk to me, what was Weight Watchers providing in terms of benefits or financial help or payments after the firings? They paid us for a week after, an extra week, and they're giving us a lifetime membership for Weight Watchers. I guess that's about it. Healthcare benefits, any sort of

retirement? No. I'm hoping that I'm going to get unemployment. I've applied. I have not gotten anything yet. And, you know, if I get the unemployment. I've applied. I have not gotten anything yet. And, you know, if I get the unemployment, I'll be okay until they cut out that extra money at the end of July. But after that, you know, I can't really live on $250 a week. So I'm going to have a big problem. You know, I don't know. You know, I'm going to have to find another job. And I'm 53 years old and have worked for the same company for 18 years. And, you know, I don't know, you know, I'm going to have to find another job. And I'm 53 years old and have worked for the same company for 18 years. And, you know, yes, I have several college degrees, but I've never used any of them because, you know, or it's been a long time since I've using any of them is is next to impossible. It's been, you know, 26 years since when she's 27. So 27 years since I've used any of them. So I don't know what I'm going to do. I really don't. I have no idea. I think about that every night. I don't think I've gotten a full night's sleep in three weeks. I think about that every night. I don't think I've gotten a full night's sleep in three weeks. I fall asleep at three in the morning and then I'm back up at seven wondering the same things.

And some days I think, OK, it's going to work out somehow. And then I move on. And then the next night it's not so good. But, I mean, I know that there's, what, several million people in the country going through exactly the same thing as me. several million people in the country going through exactly the same thing as me. I know it's a little early, but have there been any silver linings? I just, I guess, you know, I am stronger than I thought I was. I didn't let this, you know, push me back into a depression or anxiety spiral, even though, you know, I am having some sleep issues. It's nothing like what it was, you know,

seven years ago before my daughter's transplant. And I'm not going to let them, you know, take away the strength that I've gained over the last seven years. I'm not going to let them destroy that. strength that I've gained over the last seven years. I'm not going to let them destroy that. Thank you so much, Nicole. Thank you. I appreciate you doing this. Hello?

Hi, is this Annalia? Yes. Hi, Annalia. This is Sabrina Tavernisi from the New York Times calling. Hi, how are you today? I'm okay. I'm okay. Thanks for taking the time to talk with me. So, Annalia, I want to go back to the beginning when you first lost your job and what happened. Okay. My name is Analia Rodriguez.

I'm 45 years old. I was working in the airport in Fort Lauderdale as a bartender. And I got laid off on March the 20th. What was that day like? How did you find out? I was scheduled to go to work and I received a phone call telling me not to go,

that they were closing. And later on, I got a letter on the mail. So yeah, it was devastating. It was really bad. The type of news is something that you don't want to hear. It's nothing that we expect, especially when we have the health insurance benefits. And, you know, in my case, it's a must.

Why is it a must for you? Well, my husband had an accident last year. He was riding his motorcycle and he had an accident. He's suffering from a brain injury and he also lost his leg. So for me, keeping my health insurance was so important. I worked really hard just because I wanted to be able to take care of him. So, yep, now this happened. So, once again, we are starting from scratch. So, you were laid off on March 20th, and then what happened? What did you do?

I applied for the unemployment online. I mean, it was very hard. It was so much traffic, which is very understandable. I'm not the only one here. There's hundreds of people that are trying to get through it. I woke up at two o'clock, at four o'clock, six o'clock, seven o'clock, and it was impossible. You're trying to apply, you get to a certain point, and then they'll kick you out of the website, and it doesn't even save your information. How many times did you try on the website? Do you remember roughly?

In the beginning, it was every day, every hour, like different hours. I will take different hours in the day to try to get through it. I call customer service. Like today, before, you know, this interview, I tried seven times to call to see what's going on. And finally, I got someone to help me today. And fair enough, she didn't know anything. Like, she couldn't help me.

I mean, I need the money. I really need it. We are struggling really bad. And Aaliyah, how are you guys doing for food? Well, we have a food distribution, you know, so you have to go in a car and you have to make the line. What is the line like? The lines are like pretty long. even though if you go early you have to wait

in the car for so long it's embarrassing no because i'm like i'm not doing anything that i'm not supposed to do it's embarrassing for me as a person after working 20 years coming to this country and i work really hard to be part of the system. I came here with a one-year-old son by myself. I never applied for any help, anything, because I felt like I could work for it. I don't want free stuff. I want what is mine. And that's why I'm at this point that it's so embarrassing. You have to go and feel like you're begging for money begging for food you know I have to email my landlord telling him that I'm gonna you know I don't know I can't even give him an answer okay listen my money is gonna come in

July and I'm gonna pay you everything that I owe no I don't have an answer because I don't know when my money is going to be coming. So it's like, you cannot borrow money from a friend when you're going to pay him back. So I just, I didn't sit home waiting for my money or my checks. I had to do something because we need to survive. And then I had to sell my car. Sorry. When did you sell your car? Tell me about that. Well, because I don't have any income and I can't pay for anything. So I was like, okay, you know what, I'm going to try to make a deal. Somebody wants my car. Obviously they don't give you the money that probably the car is worth. But you know, I could have some money to keep going on. And I had to like go to a pound shop

and I had to sell my wedding ring. Did you think about it really hard for a long time or how did you think about that decision? Well, it took me almost two months to think about it. Well, it took me almost two months to think about it. That ring, for me, it was like an attachment to him, a reminder, you know, he's going to survive. Remember, you're married to this guy. It had a meaning, you know, for me. Yeah.

So I cried for a few nights. I couldn't sleep. But, you know, my family is first. And I don't see that the money is going to come anytime soon. I have to do what I have to do. And, Aliyah, thank you for telling me your story. Thank you for listening. And I'm sorry if I get so frustrated, but it is the truth.

Okay, thank you very much, Analia. Thank you. We'll be right back. Hello? Nikita? Yes. Hi. Can you hear me now? I can hear you fine. Nikita, thanks so much for doing this. I'm sorry for all the tech confusion.

You're welcome. It's okay. Maybe just to start out, tell us who you are. What's your name? How old are you? Where do you live? Okay. My name is Nikita Long, and I live in North Carolina. I'm 44 years old. Tell me where you were working. What were you doing? I was working in an automotive manufacturing facility. We make airbag sensors and parts for all the vehicles that vehicles on the road, pretty much. And I was hired through a temp agency. So I had been working there almost two years.

And so being hired on permanently was the goal. So it was a temp job, but you were hoping it would become permanent. Yeah, we were continuously getting promised that it would become permanent. So we continued to stay and tough it out. How did you learn that you were going to lose your job? It was one of my days off. It was during the weekday. My three-year-old was running around.

And I got an email from the temporary office's agent. And she said, you know, I've been trying to reach you. Don't go back to the location. And I'm thinking, what did I do wrong? Did I mess up a part? What what did I do? And so when I called her, she just was like, your job is done effective immediately. Do not go back to the plant. I need your badge. And I, you know, I don't really know what I did, but I know I disconnected from the environment. I disconnected from my three-year-old.

I disconnected from everything. Like, I got to deal with this. I have to deal with this. What is this about? What is going on here? This can't be happening right now because I have never really been able to save for retirement because I died temporary.

The money hasn't really been there. So I don't have it right now in me to go out here and do this. Where's my resume? I got to update my resume. Oh my God, I'm too old for this. I don't want to go back out here and do this. Okay, am I going to be able to find something where I'm going to be able to cater around my three? Or am I going to even be able to find a job at all?

What am I going to do? I just thought about my kids. How is my next decision going to affect them? So it was so many thoughts going through my mind. I just had to write down, okay, what bills do I have? What can I let go of? What can I do? have? What can I let go of? What can I do? Because I don't want my kids to be deprived of the life that I've worked so hard to provide for them. I don't want them to suffer through this because

of this. How do I keep the atmosphere still positive, still optimistic for them when I'm going crazy inside? Like, oh my God, what does this mean? All of these things were going through my head. I was just in chaos. That's a lot of thoughts all at once. Yeah. And even as you were thinking about all of that, you were thinking about protecting your kids and not letting them see what you were dealing with. I wanted to make sure that I maintained the environment where they felt like

mom, she's going to figure it out again. She always does. Mom always gets it right. She always makes it right for us. My daughter is 17. She's talking about college. She's excited to go away and do all those things, you know, that kids want to do when they get 18 they think the world's an oyster right and I was like okay how do I how do I let them experience that and still deal with what we're dealing with had you always been in manufacturing um pretty much I had always been in manufacturing the entire time that I was in school because I had kids. So, you know, to juggle that, I did manufacturing, raised my kids, and I went to school. And so when it came time for me to graduate and be able to use that degree, I was constantly told I was overqualified

because I would put the master's degree as if it was a great accomplishment. But the employees would say, well, if you have a master's degree, what's going to happen is you're going to get here and you're going to realize it's not enough money and you're going to want to leave. So it was kind of, you know, I couldn't win on either spectrum. I couldn't really get my foot in the door on any level to do anything because I was either overqualified because of my degree or I was underqualified because I never had any experience in criminal justice. You have a master's degree in criminal justice. What were you planning on doing with that originally? I originally planned to go on to law school and get my JD and be a judge. But it never quite came out that way? and be a judge.

But it never quite came out that way? No, because life happens, you know, and you have to make adjustments. I'm a single mom for quite some time, so I just got really stuck in that cycle, you know, of having to take care of my family, making ends meet. How much did you make in that job?

We started out, when we first got there, it was $14.25, I believe, an hour. And then what I ended it with $15.25, and I've been at that for almost a year. Was that enough for you to get by? It was just enough. I still had to apply for food stamps. was just enough. I still had to apply for food stamps. So it was not enough, but I made it work because it was better than a lot of other jobs that I had worked, working substantially harder, making substantially less. I mean, I went to school, I did everything I was supposed to do. And I was told, I was promised that this was part of the dream for a better life.

You know, those posters that they had up in the schools. And I don't know if they have them up anymore. You know, a high school graduate makes this much. Someone with a master's degree makes this much. Where is that at? Because I've never seen that. I've never seen $50,000 a year. Once you sort of got through that first wave of emotions and you're sitting

there and looking at the money you have and the money that's going to be coming in, what decisions did you make? I lost my job on March 30th. So this was around tax time. What was able to keep my family inside the home that we have and to keep me from begging, you know, bill collectors from, you know, cutting off my lights, you know, cutting off my water, cutting off the gas was that I was able to tap into my tax refund. And that was what I was living off of. And I applied for unemployment. So I called every day about 20 times a day, constantly calling back, hang up, cart it up, hang up, cart it back, nothing, no one. So I'm like, okay. How long did it take to resolve that? On April 14th, I was able to get a resolution and it said that my claim had been approved $223 a week after all my time working.

And the additional $600 from the federal government was the amount that I was able to stay my bills because, you know, I don't know who can live off $223 a week. I'm not sure. You're getting $600 a week from the federal government. You're getting $223 from the state of North Carolina. How does that compare to what you were earning when you were working back at the plant? It is actually more than I was earning. And I think that's probably the sad part about it, that it is actually more. I'm bringing in now a little bit over $320 more, I mean, give or take a few dollars, than I was making going to work every day. So it's allowed me to pay my bills a little bit more comfortably.

me to pay my bills a little bit more comfortably. You say that, you say it's sort of sad that you're making more on unemployment than you were working. Why do you say that? Why do you say that's sad? That I have to make a decision between working and making less and staying home and making more when I'd rather be working. Why can that not be included in salaries? Why can that not be included in wages? I love to work. I want to contribute to society, be with my peers. I want to, you know, meet people at work that are different from me. I want to get out the house away from my family. We all want that right now. But, you know, I want to contribute to society. I don't know, maybe it's me, don't we all? So what are you doing today to prepare for that day when unemployment benefits run out? Right now, I am writing my bills out. I'm writing down what I can cut. I'm looking and researching

areas to live that we can move to to maybe get a livable wage and live safely. I'm doing all of that. You said you're thinking about leaving North Carolina? Yeah, I'm considering moving to another state if the opportunities are there for the dreams that I have for my family are there. I'm very open to that. Moving to another state? Yes, definitely. Do you remember a time when you didn't have to worry about money every day? No. No. well nikita i really appreciate your taking the time to talk to us and to share your story with all of us.

And I hope that things work out for you soon. I appreciate that. Thank you for taking the time talking to me. Nikita has one week left on her state unemployment benefits. Then she'll have to apply for an extension. She's still getting the extra $600 a week from the federal government for now, but that runs out at the end of next month. She's been looking for jobs, but with two kids at home, her options are more limited. So she's really been looking to cut back financially.

She told me she's thinking about getting rid of her car and she's planning for the future. She's wondering whether with her master's degree in criminal justice, she could get into professional counseling. And she wrote me an email. She said, I know I'll be able to bounce back. I'm just not sure how long it will take or what sacrifices I will have to make. We'll be right back. Here's what else you need to know today. Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman, Ranking Member Walden. Thank you all for giving me the opportunity to discuss with you today the role of the National Institutes of Health and Research addressing COVID-19.

On Tuesday, during an appearance before a House committee, Dr. Anthony Fauci warned that the next few weeks would be critical to confronting the dramatic surge of infections in states like Florida, Texas, and Arizona. I've seen some data the last few days that while cases are going up in this country, deaths are going down. Should we see this as a positive sign or should we still be worried? I think it's too early to make that kind of link, Congresswoman. Let me explain. Deaths always lag considerably behind cases. During the hearing, Fauci cautioned that the current decline in deaths from the virus

could quickly reverse and begin to climb again. So you're seeing more cases now while the deaths are going down. The concern is if those cases then infect people who wind up getting sick and go to the hospital, it is conceivable you may see the deaths going up. So I think it's too early to say because the deaths are going down. Asked about the timing for a vaccine, Fauci said that he was optimistic that it could be ready by early next year. And the Times reports that as the European Union begins to lift travel restrictions next month,

it may block Americans from entering its 27 countries because of the failure of the U.S. to control the spread of the virus. Beside the U.S., the EU may also bar travel from Russia and Brazil, but it is likely to allow entry for citizens of China, where the pandemic began but is now largely under control. That's it for The Daily. I'm Michael Barbaro. See you tomorrow.