A Labor Department spokeswoman said the situations laid out in its recent guidance “are not exhaustive, and we expect many ride-share workers to be eligible.” Uber and Lyft also said they expected many drivers to qualify.
Andrew Stettner, an expert on unemployment insurance at the Century Foundation, a liberal think tank, said part of the problem was language inserted late in the legislative process that required the Labor Department to use a longstanding program, Disaster Unemployment Assistance, as a model.
Under that earlier program, which helps states make benefits available to the self-employed after events like hurricanes, workers indirectly affected by a disaster — like a supplier of baked goods to restaurants that have been destroyed — often have difficulty getting benefits. And the process typically requires filing significant amounts of paperwork in a relatively short time.
“The program is a false promise,” Mr. Stettner said of the disaster assistance program. “It is undersubscribed.”
Notwithstanding the more restrictive legislative language, experts said, the Labor Department could have broadened its framework to cover any self-employed person who saw work dry up because of the pandemic — whether an Uber driver or a web-marketing consultant whose clients are small businesses. It chose not to.
The rules were adapted “pretty much wholesale” from the disaster benefits program, said Maurice Emsellem, an expert on unemployment insurance at the National Employment Law Project, a worker advocacy group. “They have all the leeway in the world to waive those regulations if they wanted to. It’s their regulations.”
Mr. Emsellem argued that states could still interpret the law more broadly and encouraged them to do so.
Article source: https://www.nytimes.com/2020/04/08/business/economy/coronavirus-gig-unemployment.html
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