“You put 10, 15, 20 years into a career and then suddenly you can’t go to the dentist anymore, it just feels like something is wrong there,” he said. “I think I’m still grieving that I lost my opportunity to be middle class because that’s gone again.”
Regular unemployment benefits, with no additional $300, replace only a fraction of workers’ lost wages. In Pennsylvania, the maximum benefit is $580 per week, which is equivalent to about $30,000 per year. In some Southern states, the maximum benefit is less than $300 per week.
Yet decades of economic research have shown that unemployment benefits are at least somewhat of a deterrent to job seeking. When the economy is weak, this negative outcome is offset by the positive impact of benefits on workers, but many economists argue it makes sense to reduce benefits as the economy improves.
Cutting benefits for millions of people at once is another matter.
“Losing a job we know from research is one of the things that hurts your financial and personal well-being the most in the long run,” said Andrew Stettner, a senior fellow at the Century Foundation. “During the pandemic, we largely avoided such long-term effects because we were aggressive with our forms of support. Now we’re pulling it back, putting people at risk.”
Despite her master’s degree, Ms. Harrison has lost her job twice since the pandemic began. She took early leave from her human resources job. He eventually found a job to help run a Covid testing business, but was laid off again in March as the pandemic began to subside. He now spends his days reviewing job postings and submitting applications.
“It will end,” he said of unemployment benefits. “You know it’s going to end. So you can’t just sit around and wiggle your thumbs.”
Her husband has diabetes and high blood pressure and lives with her mother, so Ms. Harrison, 47, is reluctant to return to face-to-face work until the pandemic is under control. Despite holding a master’s degree and senior experience, she is applying for positions as a receptionist or administrative assistant, jobs most recently held decades ago.