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Trump Signs Covid-19 Relief And Government Funding Bill 

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President Donald Trump has signed the $2.3 trillion Covid-19 relief and government funding bill into law this past Sunday night. The $900 billion coronavirus relief package will extend unemployment benefits to millions of jobless gig-workers, independent contractors, and long-term unemployed individuals. 

12 million Americans have been receiving benefits from two key pandemic unemployment programs. This past weekend would’ve marked their last weekend of payments had this bill not been signed; they will now receive another 11 weeks. All individuals collecting unemployment payments will also be receiving an additional $300 weekly through the middle of March. 

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Since Trump didn’t sign the bill on Saturday, however, those who are in the Pandemic Unemployment Assistance and Pandemic Emergency Unemployment Compensation programs will likely not receive a payment for the final week of 2020, and the $300 additional payments may only last 10 weeks due to the fact that the states can’t provide benefits for weeks before a program is fully authorized. 

The Covid-19 relief package was initially passed by Congress on Monday and then was flown to Mar-a-Lago on Thursday so Trump could then sign it. After endless hours of negotiations, the current president finally signed the bill, which will provide $600 stimulus payments to all adult Americans, and $1,200 to all couples; exactly half of what was given out during the initial round of stimulus payments. 

Trump himself has been spending the past month trying to get the 2020 election investigated on dozens of baseless claims of voter fraud, in fact, this past weekend when he signed the bill Trump claimed that the Senate would be “considering legislation that repeals Section 230, and thus start an investigation into voter fraud.” It’s currently unclear what that legislation would actually look like, and it’s important to note that there has been 0% evidence of voter fraud in the 2020 election. 

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The two programs previously mentioned that are being extended allows the self-employed, freelance, and gig workers to qualify for up to 39 weeks of payments, and will now be opened up to those who can’t work in general due to the pandemic. 

The new deal extends the programs for up to 11 weeks and each will close to new applicants on March 14th but will continue through April 5th for individuals who have existing claims and have not reached their maximum number of weeks by that point. Eviction protection is also extended until January 31st and will provide $25 billion in rental assistance to those who are unable to work for pandemic-related reasons. 

It’s estimated that 9.2 million renters in America have lost their employment during the pandemic, and are struggling to pay their rent. The US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention implemented an order in the beginning of the pandemic that halted some evictions and rental payments through 2020, however, the program didn’t cancel out the payments, so without this new package many Americans were gearing up to receive a massive bill on January 1st for all the rent they would owe from the past nine months.

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California Votes To Exempt Uber And Lyft From Gig-Work Law 

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To the dismay of contract drivers throughout California, a ballot measure was passed that exempts ride-sharing companies, like Uber and Lyft, from treating their drivers as actual employees. For tech companies, this vote is a major win in terms of protecting their business models, but for gig-workers, it means being paid the bare minimum without any of the benefits. 

The ballot measure was referred to as Prop 22 and was authored by Uber, Lyft, Doordash, and Instacart. The measure claimed that the companies would be exempt from AB5, a landmark California labor law that appeared years of constant complaints from driver-organizations who wanted to be treated as actual employees. 

Under Prop 22, the drivers for these companies will continue to be classified as contractors, or gig-workers, which removes them from having access to rights like minimum wage, unemployment benefits, health insurance, collective bargaining, union work, etc. Essentially, it means that the gig companies have full control over its employees earnings and rights.

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The fact that America is in the middle of one of the worst economic crisis’ in history as a result of one of the most deadliest pandemics the world has ever seen, has a ton of workers throughout the nation fighting for their right to live, and not work in the middle of a global health crisis. Especially considering how much money companies like Uber earn in a given year, billions, gig workers are fighting for a chance to be given even the most basic of worker rights. 

The companies made their argument by claiming that enforcing AB5 would cause “irreparable harm to their business model.” The “harm” that the companies are referring to would be actually paying their employees a regular salary and providing riders with more low-cost rides, which would thus increase business as well. 

The corporations involved in Prop 22 spent over $800 million on the campaign, leading to a slew of online commentary regarding the irony of multi-billion dollar companies not wanting to pay their employees minimum wage so badly that they spend hundreds of millions on a campaign against it. This spending, however, is what led to their win, according to Steve Smith, a spokesman for the California Labor Federation. 

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“Despite all our efforts, at the end of the day our messaging was drowned out by the campaign’s massive spending. They have extraordinary resources that they’ve indicated that they’re willing to utilize in other states outside of California, which is a huge concern.”

Labor advocates throughout the nation are worried that California is setting a dangerous precedent for gig workers across the nation. Especially considering we’re in the middle of a pandemic where many individuals are picking up gig work to help their households financially, the fact that these corporations are trying to drain even more money from their lower class employees is dumbfounding. 

New York Governor Andrew Cuomo recently spoke on this issue, stating that he wanted to introduce legislation that would make sure all workers in the state have necessary protections and benefits. “Many of the gig economy workers are excluded from the progress New York has enacted because the law has not caught up with changes in the economy. Corporations avoid fair pay and benefits, increasing their profits at the expense of the employee and the taxpayer.” 

Beyond that, current president-elect Joe Biden and vice-president-elect Kamala Harris both publicly opposed Prop 22 during their campaigning, and promised to create a federal version of California’s AB5 law that would aim to protect gig workers everywhere so they’re given the same opportunities and benefits as any other employee in America. 

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Another 751,000 Americans Filed For Unemployment Last Week 

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With everyone being so focused on the close race to the White House this week, many have forgotten we’re currently in the middle of one of the worst health and economic crises in history. While we may not know who the next President of the United States is quite yet, if one thing is for sure, whoever it is will have to deal with the nation’s massive unemployment problem. 

Last week, another 751,000 Americans claimed first-time unemployment benefits on a seasonally adjusted basis, according to the US Labor Department. Compared to the week prior those numbers are actually slightly decreased, however, the nation has watched hundreds of thousands of citizens lose their jobs every week for the past nine months, so many are wondering when they’ll receive some sort of relief. 

Beyond that, 362,883 workers found out they weren’t eligible for regular state benefits that could be claimed under the Pandemic Unemployment Assistance program. If you add up those totals that’s 1.1 million Americans who filed first-time claims last week. 

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Economists have been adamant throughout this pandemic that one of their biggest concerns would be a plateauing of total initial claims due to a slowdown in the job market. This concern is now a stark reality for so many US residents who have been continuously unemployed and trying to keep their loved ones afloat in the middle of one of the worst global health crises in history. 

Continued jobless claims, which account for workers who have applied for benefits two or more weeks in a row, reached 7.3 million, which is about half a million less than what it was the previous week. However, it’s important to note that even though the number of continued jobless claims has decreased that doesn’t necessarily mean that the amount of unemployed individuals has reduced.

In fact, compared to previous weeks that’s a much slower decline. One of the reasons these claims could be going down could be due to the fact that people have exhausted their state benefits and are now trying to take advantage of other government programs to help in the meantime. States commonly provide around 26 weeks of unemployment benefits. 

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These state-run programs have greatly benefited certain individuals who have run out of their Pandemic Emergency Unemployment Compensation (PEUC), which was obviously created as a result of the Covid-19 pandemic. In the week of October 17th nearly 4 million Americans received PEUC payments, which was a 280,000 increase when compared to the week prior. 

Many Americans are worried about the results of the 2020 election as well as what type of programs will be created with the New Year as the pandemic continues to worsen. Many of the various pandemic relief initiatives for unemployed individuals are set to expire at the end of 2020. Andrew Stettner is a senior fellow at the Century Foundation who recently spoke with the press about what the US needs to do for its people to help us stay afloat as a country. 

“There are simply not enough jobs being created to support all of the workers running out of aid before the end of 2020. It is now time to reach a deal that keeps the lifelines of pandemic relief going into next year. We urgently need action before the holiday season.”

The government is set to publish its October job report this Friday, which economists are projecting to show an additional 600,000 jobs being created for unemployed individuals within the past month. However, even if those numbers hold true America would still be down by more than 10 million jobs when compared to the numbers in February right before the pandemic hit.