Federal Unemployment Aid Is Now a Political Lightning Rod

“Employers always complain about not being able to find the job seeker they want at that moment at the price they are willing to pay, whether it’s the best economy in 50 years or a terrible economy,” he said.

The problem with prematurely ending jobless benefits, he said, is that “such a broad brush policy also punishes people who are also desperately looking for work.”

That’s the situation that Amy Cabrera says she faces in Arizona. Since she was furloughed last summer, Ms. Cabrera, 45, has been living off about $500 a week in unemployment benefits, after taxes — roughly half the $50,000 salary in her previous job conducting audits in the meetings and events department at American Express.

To make ends meet, she has given up the lease on her car and sublet a room in the house she rents in the San Tan Valley, southeast of Phoenix. “I’m paying for my food — whatever I need to survive — and that’s it,” she said, as she sat in the used 2006 Jeep she bought so she would not be carless. Food stamps are helping pay for her meals.

But Ms. Cabrera rejected the idea that there were plenty of jobs to be had in Arizona, where the governor has moved to end the $300 federal supplement on July 10. Many positions she is qualified for, including executive administration and office management jobs, are paying $15 an hour, she said, far from enough to pay her $1,550 monthly rent and part of her son’s college tuition. Jobs in Phoenix or Tempe would require her to commute nearly two hours each way during rush hour. And because of a bad back, she can’t have a job that would require her to spend time on her feet.

“I have desperately been looking for work,” Ms. Cabrera said. Still, of the roughly 100 jobs she estimated she had applied for, she has had only one interview.

She said she didn’t know how she would live on her remaining unemployment benefits — $214 a week after taxes — when she loses the $300 supplement.

Article source: https://www.nytimes.com/2021/06/05/business/economy/unemployment-benefits-cutoff.html