If Christmas Day shines bright with its shiny gifts and tables filled with good food, then Dec. 26 looms like a lump of coal in an otherwise empty stocking this year for 280,000 Coloradans.
That’s the day the federal CARES Act expires, ending millions in extra unemployment benefits that have kept people economically afloat since March. Two weeks after the president declared a national emergency, Congress passed the $2 trillion bill that bailed out millions of Americans whose jobs vanished as businesses closed to stop COVID-19’s spread.
For Serah Ezeudoye, a furloughed airport worker, the end of the CARES Act means falling short of her January rent and pushing the unpaid Xcel Energy bills back again.
For Letrisha Fritch, a bus driver working just 12 hours a week, it will mean applying for any retail job she can find in hopes of paying her mortgage.
And for Michelle Bougere, the loss of unemployment benefits means continuing to live with her parents and doing everything she can to avoid dipping into her retirement account.
“It’s just indescribable stress,” Ezeudoye said. “I’m sure I’m not alone in this.”
The CARES Act funneled $3.7 billion to Colorado workers by providing extra money for weekly payments, extending the number of weeks people could draw benefits and by creating a program that allowed self-employed people, contractors and gig workers to collect benefits.
As late as Friday, Congress was considering a plan that would provide a one-time stimulus of about $600 to workers whether or not they have a job. It also would add an extra $300 to weekly unemployment payments, extend the number of weeks people can draw benefits, and keep the Pandemic Unemployment Assistance program for gig workers going through April 19.
Still, it won’t be enough to fend off financial hardship for thousands of Coloradans living on the brink of financial disaster. And any stimulus won’t come fast enough to prevent a gap in benefits, potentially sending thousands off a financial cliff to start the new year. Even if Congress passes a bill before Christmas, it would take about a month for money to start flowing, said Cher Haavind, deputy executive director of the Colorado Department of Labor and Employment.
“We’ve passed the point of no return,” said Michele Evermore, a senior policy analyst for the National Employment Law Project. “It’s the day after Christmas and rent is due. It’s a terrible time for a cliff.”
Andy Cross, The Denver Post
Margii Crackel, top left, Employment Services of Weld County workshop facilitator, directs a powerpoint presentation during a Knowledge, Skills and Attitudes workshop for job seekers in Greeley on Dec. 17, 2020.A looming cliff
Since the pandemic began, about 729,000 Colorado workers — about 24% of the state’s entire workforce, as measured in 2019 — have received at least one unemployment payment, according to the state labor department. But there are 280,000 people whose jobs have not been restored or who have not been able to find new work or whose health has not allowed them to return, and those Coloradans stand to suffer the most when the CARES Act ends.
That looming cliff has snuck up on some people who’ve relied on extra benefits to pay for food, rent, car payments and other essentials for months. Among the programs expiring are Pandemic Unemployment Assistance, which for the first time provided benefits to gig and contract workers, and Pandemic Emergency Unemployment Compensation, which extended the number of weeks a person could draw benefit payments.
The Colorado Department of Labor and Employment is reaching out to tens of thousands of people using those programs to alert them funding is set to run out.
Earlier this month, labor department analysts projected 153,000 Coloradans would lose income when those programs shut off. That proved to be a rosy estimate. Of those who will lose all benefits, 191,000 are on the Pandemic Unemployment Assistance, or PUA, program.
The state labor department doesn’t have much it can offer in terms of short-term relief. Earlier this month, CDLE Executive Director Joe Barela suggested those who are able to return to the job market should look at job postings and explore training options available through the state’s network of workforce centers.
“If people can work, if it is safe for them to work, we would like to see them explore their opportunities if their benefits have run out or are about to run out,” Barela said.
Other than that, state officials are asking people to be patient.
“We will let them know as soon as we get additional guidance from congressional action and the U.S Department of Labor,” Haavind said during a press briefing on Dec. 10.
But it’s hard to be patient with the government when a landlord isn’t patient about late rent.
“They should put away their personal egos and do something,” Ezeudoye said of politicians in Washington. “I don’t know how they go back to their different homes and play with their grandchildren and their families when there are others lining up begging for food. It’s inhuman.”
Ezeudoye, 80, was furloughed in May from her job as a wheelchair agent at Denver International Airport. Since then, she has used unemployment benefits to supplement the $830 she gets each month from Social Security.
She burned through the maximum 26 weeks of unemployment allowed under Colorado law and then the extra 13 weeks provided under the CARES Act.
When that allotment was exhausted, Ezeudoye qualified to receive benefits through PUA. While that program was created for the self-employed, the law also allowed people who exhausted all their allowable weeks but couldn’t re-enter the workforce because of health conditions to draw from it.
That ends on Saturday.
On Jan. 1, Ezeudoye will be left to pay her $900 monthly rent and all of her bills on Social Security alone.
Already, she’s behind on rent and owes money to Xcel Energy.
“All those little, little bills,” she said.
Hyoung Chang, The Denver Post
Serah Ezeudoye, 80, poses for a portrait in front of her apartment in Denver on Wednesday, Dec. 16, 2020.Overwhelming need
The need already is overwhelming Colorado charities, with food banks reporting longer lines and housing agencies seeing record numbers of requests. Even groups that don’t operate as traditional charities, such as Black Lives Matter 5280, are creating assistance programs.
That group, known more for its civil rights advocacy, created a fund this year to help Black and Indigenous people pay their rent, said Apryl A. Alexander, a community organizer.
“There’s a lot of people really being disenfranchised in this moment,” she said, noting studies that repeatedly have shown the pandemic and economic crisis are hurting Black people, Latinos and other minorities harder than whites.
Maj. Richard Pease of the Salvation Army in metro Denver said his agency is bracing for an “avalanche of requests” for housing assistance. In an average month, about 1,000 people ask the Salvation Army for help to pay rent or a mortgage. In April, requests ballooned to 4,000, and he’s expecting at least that number in January.
Pease encourages anyone who might need help to apply before they are in arrears, because it takes time for paperwork to process.
“We’re seeing folks who’ve never come to the Salvation Army for help before,” Pease said. “We encourage people not to isolate and hope it will all work. We want them to reach out because we’re all in this together.”
Ron Ruggiero, president of the Service Employees International Local 105, called Congress’s failure to act “unconscionable and morally outrageous.”
“The desperation of working people — it’s difficult to put into words,” he said.
He recalled how in 2017 President Donald Trump and the GOP passed a $1.8 trillion tax cut in a matter of weeks. They could do the same for the unemployed if they wanted to, he said.
In October, the Democratic-controlled U.S. House of Representatives passed a $2.2 trillion stimulus package that would have added an extra $600 weekly unemployment benefit and another $1,200 one-time payment to most Americans. But Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell blocked it with his party’s support.
“You have the Republican-controlled Senate dragging it out for months and months. It’s morally wrong that billionaires get what they want with no delay while working people are subject to months and months of delay with all this stress and the reality of what they don’t have,” Ruggiero said. “It’s just unconscionable and it’s dangerous.”
Greg Nash, Pool via the Associated Press
Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell of Kentucky talks during a news conference on Capitol Hill in Washington, D.C. on Dec. 8, 2020.Too little, too late
The scope of the damage on a national scale is stunning. The U.S. Department of Labor counted more than 14 million people across the country who filed continued claims for PUA and PEUC support during the week ending Nov. 28.
While a deal appears imminent, most of those who work with the unemployed say it will be too little, too late.
In Colorado, it’s likely that the soonest PUA payments will be reactivated is late January.
“It doesn’t matter when Congress passes these relief packages. Please keep in mind that there are several things that need to happen at the state level for every state,” Haavind said during that Dec. 10 call. “We need to await federal guidance from the U.S. Department of Labor. That guidance tells us how we need to reprogram our systems, who is eligible, who is not eligible, and really is the framework for these packages going forward.”
That reprogramming work alone could take weeks.
Zach Neumann, the executive director of the COVID-19 Eviction Defense Project, which provides free legal assistance to struggling tenants, referenced recent U.S. Census Bureau survey data when discussing the dangers of even a small gap in federal unemployment support.
According to the latest Household Pulse Survey, 209,000 Coloradans have “no confidence” in their ability to pay their next month’s housing costs. Around 365,000 people in the state are not caught up on their rent or mortgage.
Even with the state legislature putting $54 million to housing assistance during a recent special session and the possibility that Gov. Jared Polis will extend a statewide eviction moratorium that expires this month, the “risks are enormous,” Neumann said.
Once Colorado updates its unemployment systems there will be people who run into glitches, errors and other hiccups that prevent them from collecting, Neumann pointed out. And glitches are likely as Colorado is poised to launch a new unemployment claims system just as any new stimulus package is put in place. That will replace a computer system that the labor department’s own executive director described as being held together by “duct tape and chicken wire.”
“If we’re going to address this we need to keep people in a position where they are still receiving funding and can pay rent and pay for food, these types of things, because it’s a long road between the passage of new money and it actually landing in people’s pockets,” Neumann said.
AAron Ontiveroz, The Denver Post
State Rep. Dave Williams, R-Colorado Springs, walks the sidelines of the Colorado House floor, during a special legislative session at the Capitol in Denver on Wednesday, Dec. 2, 2020. The legislature met in early December for a special session to address the ongoing novel coronavirus pandemic.Plummeting income
Meanwhile, people barely scratching by wait. And the anxiety mounts.
The company where Bougere works as director of events was among the first to lose business when the pandemic hit. The company plans and manages large events such as Taste of Colorado, college graduations, political conventions and rallies, and other big to-dos that bring together a lot of people.
When the coronavirus arrived, those concerts, rallies, parties and festivals were the first things to be canceled.
“Our business just died on March 15,” Bougere said. “We have millions of dollars in inventory just sitting.”
The company, Production Services International, dropped to five full-time employees from 45 and canceled work for hundreds of independent contractors who run sound and light systems and work as stage hands.
The company used a Paycheck Protection Program loan to pay Bougere and other employees through June, she said. When that ran out she filed for unemployment. At first, an extra $600 a week in benefits lessened the pain. That federal CARES Act benefit, however, expired in July. The $618 a week in unemployment insurance she now receives equates to more than a 40% loss of income.
As a single mother, Bougere helps supports a 21-year-old college student in California.
The income loss forced Bougere to break her lease at a Denver apartment — at a penalty — and move home to New Orleans to live with her parents.
At this point, she has depleted her savings account and is trying her best to avoid dipping into her retirement accounts. But that may not be possible if nothing replaces the CARES Act.
She’s already used up her regular unemployment insurance benefits and now is receiving the extra 13 weeks of benefits. That ends on Saturday even though she only would have used three weeks.
Late last week as Congress discussed a one-time stimulus payment of $600 to $700 with no extension to regular unemployment benefits, Bougere sighed, saying it would cover her cell phone bill, car insurance and not much else.
After 25 years in the special events industry, all of this is forcing her to consider a career change at 54. Her company guaranteed her old job but she’s unsure she can wait for it to be safe for hundreds or even thousands of people to gather again.
“Until I can find employment I depend on the generosity of my parents,” Bougere said. “I’m lucky to have them at my age.”
Hyoung Chang, The Denver Post
Letrisha Fritch works in Denver on Wednesday, Dec. 16, 2020.Barely getting by
On March 13, Fritch had just finished driving an out-of-town charter bus and hadn’t been paying much attention to news while behind the wheel. When her boss at Gray Line called and told her she needed to pick up a Lufthansa flight crew and take them to the airport, she didn’t understand the urgency.
He explained the coronavirus was spreading in Colorado and things were shutting down.
“That was the last time I drove until September,” Fritch said.
These days Fritch works 12 hours per week, shuttling Lufthansa crews to and from DIA. That work supplemented by unemployment benefits is just enough to get by.
“I’m making it. I’m eating cheaper. I’m staying home,” Fritch said. “I’m not going anywhere so I’m not burning gas.”
When she was laid off in March, the company no longer provided health insurance. A cancer survivor, Fritch bought insurance but could only afford the bare minimum.
She’s searched for a part-time job but no one is hiring tour bus drivers. Her next step will be looking for something in the retail sector. She hopes the extended unemployment benefits continue. Otherwise, there’s not much left to cut from her already tight budget.
“It’s just enough to get by,” Fritch said. “If I lose what little unemployment I get, I will have to go find something else part-time.”
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Federal pandemic aid expires in a week. With no safety net in place, many Coloradans face financial ruin. - The Denver Post
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