Dear Honorable Members of Congress,

We are writing to express our concerns about ending Federal Unemployment Programs related to the Pandemic, including Pandemic Unemployment Assistance (PUA), Federal Pandemic Unemployment Compensation (FPUC), and Pandemic Extended Unemployment Compensation (PEUC),  Mixed Earners Unemployment Compensation (MEUC) and Federal–State Extended Benefits (EB) All of this assistance has a hard cut off date of September 6, 2021 for 9.3 million American Workers.

Cuts to these programs will be devastating to those who remain unemployed due to COVID-19. These benefits must continue for the working people of America. With the U.S. economy still short 6.5 million jobs as of the end of June 2021, the end of the pandemic unemployment benefits will be an abrupt jolt to millions of Americans who won’t find a job in time for this arbitrary end to assistance.
Workers of color, concentrated in frontline industries, bore the brunt of the COVID-19 labor market crisis and are still suffering the most. The current unemployment rate for Black workers is 9.2 percent—a rate that would likely be declared a national emergency if it were impacting the entire population.

Women and caregivers will lose crucial support getting back to work. There are still 1.79 million women who have dropped out of the labor force during the pandemic and because they were not laid off, these workers are not eligible for traditional state unemployment benefits, but can receive federal PUA. With access to PUA gone, these workers will have no aid as they search for work; making it harder for them to obtain employment even as our pandemic continues.

In industries such as food service, which were disproportionately hit by the pandemic, there are more job openings in the hospitality and food services sector than there are workers laid off from that sector with many workers leaving these industries due to concerns about pay and safety during the pandemic. On the other hand, industries such as technology, education, arts and entertainment, and real estate have had more unemployed workers than job openings. 

Additionally, many of us who are still unemployed due to COVID are experiencing a host of concerns, issues and unresolved challenges. Here is a list from our own concerns from everyday Americans who are unemployed and reaching out to you, our members of Congress: 

• We are over 40 and our careers hit pause due to no fault of our own; even before the pandemic companies in general were slow to hire older candidates.

• We were furloughed for months, hoping their jobs would come back and they didn’t.

• Not all companies laid people off at the beginning of COVID, many of us were let go at the end of 2020 or beginning of 2021.

• Industries have been changed by COVID, and many of us have had to shift careers into something new, or took online classes, or re-worked their resumes for new fields; all efforts taking a lot of time.

• Many of us unemployed have been applying for jobs for months but haven’t been hired yet due to HR departments taking weeks to respond to resume submissions and companies taking months to fill a position, as they receive hundreds of applicants for the same jobs. Companies' management of their hiring processes is not the fault of the unemployed and we unemployed should not be punished for this. 

• We have had to move out of high COVID impacted areas to find work. and it takes a lot of time to network and find work in a new city.
• Despite the eviction moratorium, many of us unemployed people have continued to pay rent to make sure there isn’t a cascade of rent due once it is lifted. Removing PUA benefits will put more people into housing debt.

• Rent is rising and the cost of living is going up, meanwhile parents who can't find affordable daycare for their children, or the immunocompromised, can't go back to work.

• For many of us, UI payments are not sufficient to cover rent, utilities, gas, and other necessities in many states. Losing the additional payments will put even more people into financially precarious positions, which makes job hunting a lot harder to do.

• Many states have not issued official “end of unemployment” statuses. Information provided states that these benefits will last “up to _____.” In some states, it is literally impossible to get through to an agent to confirm information around benefits, even to this day, due to a lack of agents. 

• In some states, the only way to get through to unemployment agencies is to pay to use a bot caller services, which advertise on many online forums about unemployment. These bots are tying up the lines, and we should not have to spend our unemployment on a calling service to get us through to an agent.

• Many of us have experienced a rise in job postings that are scams, or have seen hiring agencies post the same jobs in multiple places. 

• Emergency funding has yet to arrive for businesses and restaurants from the Small Business Association and many nonprofits have yet to receive any reconsideration of their emergency funding forcing their closures of businesses that could hire Americans.

• Monies are DELAYED for rental support to the point that less than 30% of Americans have gotten help yet. Removing unemployment benefits when businesses haven’t rebounded due to federal delays will be devastating to job hunters, and our country.


As well, the news of the delta, lambda, and epsilon variants of COVID have meant:

• US Cases COVID-19 Cases have been steadily rising since June, up to the same levels of February 2021 (pre-vaccine for general public) levels.

  Mask requirements reinstated in multiple states. 

  More unemployed in states where state officials aren’t taking Delta Variant seriously.

  Schools are reopening while most children remain unvaccinated, and no vaccine exists for many of our school age children.


Honorable members of Congress, we implore you to remember us, and every American who hasn’t been able to secure employment. We want to get back to work! We appreciate you giving us the opportunity to do so with real support that arrives on time. 

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1. Amid focus on infrastructure, White House economic team wrenched back to coronavirus https://www.washingtonpost.com/us-policy/2021/07/30/white-house-covid-biden/
2. FRED Economic Data, July 2021. https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/PAYEMS
3. The Century Foundation (TCF) - 7.5 Million Workers Face Devastating Unemployment Benefits Cliff This Labor Day, https://tcf.org/content/report/7-5-million-workers-face-devastating-unemployment-benefits-cliff-labor-day/?session=1
4. ibid
5. National Women’s Law Center, Women Gained 314,000 Jobs in May, But Still Need 13 Straight Months of Growth to Recover Pandemic Losses
https://nwlc.org/wp-content/uploads/2021/06/May-Jobs-Day-Final_2.pdf
6. The Century Foundation (TCF) - 7.5 Million Workers Face Devastating Unemployment Benefits Cliff This Labor Day, https://tcf.org/content/report/7-5-million-workers-face-devastating-unemployment-benefits-cliff-labor-day/?session=1
7. Economic Policy Institute, Job Openings and Labor Turnover https://www.epi.org/indicators/jolts/
8. UC Berkeley Food Labor Research Center https://onefairwage.site/wp-content/uploads/2021/05/OFW_WageShortage_F.pdf