By Sarah Hornburg
We remember when working men and women were let go from their jobs right when covid started. They relied on those jobs to pay for all of their assets and families needs. With being let go from your job while in the midst of a global pandemic is probably the scariest thing. With really now where to turn to for a source of income you are left to keep your family going with whatever money you have budgeted. But for some that just wasn’t enough
There was a program created called “Pandemic Unemployment Assistance” which would help out freelancers and part-time workers get a little bit of money to help you survive through the tough unprecedented times.
According to “The New York Times”, The department reported that more than 857,000 workers filed new claims for state unemployment insurance last week, before seasonal adjustments, a slight increase from the previous week. On a seasonally adjusted basis, the total was 884,000, unchanged from the revised figure for the previous week.” Diane Swonk, chief economist at the accounting firm Grant Thornton in Chicago says “It’s a gut punch to see these numbers every Thursday with no improvement,” about the number of unemployment that keeps going down.
Works Cited
Nelson. “Unemployment Claims Send Another Worrisome Note.” The New York Times, The New York Times, 10 Sept. 2020, www.nytimes.com/2020/09/10/business/economy/unemployment-claims.html.
It is interesting to actually experience this and whitness others around us struggling through this very difficult time. We are able to recognize how it plays a factor in everyones lives while also affecting our very own. However, I do question how long the funding for the Unemployment Assistnace will be able to cover the the rising number of individuals applying for this help. Do you think the unenployment rate will settle out in the near future? Or do you think this is going to be a continuous issue as the graph and your sources suggest it is looking to be?
ReplyDeletePersonally, I don't know anyone who was directly impacted by the pandemic in their job (for example, losing their job), it was more of a change in their working hours. For example, my friend works at Kwik Trip, and she actually got a pay raise for working during the beginning stages of the pandemic when majority of people were scared to even leave their houses at that point. Additionally, my mom is a pharmacist and her hours changed as well; she works earlier in the morning and leaves her shift earlier. I heard many small business have had to close due to the loss of income--and I can't imagine having to use budgeted money to live off of... what if you weren't saving wisely? No one can prepare years ahead for this kind of thing to occur to them; it happened so quickly, so it makes sense why people are struggling so much with their funds. Do you know anybody who has been directly affected by Covid-19 with their business/job? How have they adjusted?
ReplyDeleteIt is sad to say that there have been numerous families across the world that have been impacted by COVID-19 rather it be losing their job or their home. However, it's interesting that you mentioned,"Pandemic Unemployment Assistance," could potentially help out freelancers and part-time works but how long do you think it this program will work. Now,according to the graph do you think it will continue to get, or do you think at some point in the future the program will no longer seem to help those that are in need, if COVID-19 proceeds to get worse.
ReplyDeleteI know that were my mom works they had to lay off many people during early Covid so that the company could survive because their number of costumers were decreasing. Even know there having to do the same thing. I know that it's hard for the people who stayed to see there coworkers leave so it's nice to know they they can get some support from this program. I wonder what other things are put in place that are similar to this because im not sure if one program can cover for everyone who lost their job.
ReplyDeleteDuring the beginning of Covid, there was a lot of change for people financially and it was interesting to see all the different changes to people’s lives around me. Personally, Covid didn’t affect my work life much, except for reducing hours for the business to save money. While my family and our jobs weren’t impacted significantly by Covid, a lot of my friends were impacted. A ton of my friends weren't getting a lot of hours due to hour changes and there being adults that needed the money over them. Another example is that one of my friend’s workplace even shut down during the beginning of Covid due to it being a restaurant business. That one friend had to file for unemployment and she said that it was so hard to even get in touch with someone for unemployment since so many people were getting laid off. As time goes on, we are living the new norm and people are returning to their jobs slowly but do you think that the unemployment rate will ever be as low as it was without Covid? Or do you think it will ever even out again? If so, when?
ReplyDeleteI had a few friends working as waitresses before the pandemic, who unfortunately lost their jobs because their restaurants closed for that time period. Fortunately none of them had major bills to pay besides college. I can imagine how stressful this could be for someone with a family and a mortgage to pay,thankfully people were able to receive "Pandemic unemployment assistance" even though it was hard for most citizens to receive this. Personally for me the corona virus made my work better as I was able to work way more hours and got paid $2 extra per hour due to 'working conditions' I also got a bonus for working through the pandemic. So overall I feel like the virus affected everyone's work lives very differently. My dad, who owns a landscaping business experienced no affects from the virus, but my friends lost their jobs, which is why I think that this is such a hard time.
ReplyDeleteI hate to say of how many people around the world are unemployed because of the impact of COVID-19. On the picture of the graph that you have shown, I myself didn't know that many people in March have been unemployed. I would like to learn more of, how people are being unemployed and on what their sayings and opinions about it are also.
ReplyDeleteAwesome job Sarah, I thought this blog was very insightful and very relevant to the world today. This is a very real situation that has affected many families including mine. It is hard to believe that situation could happen, but as we saw lives were impacted greatly. One scenario that caught my mind on this topic was the company WW international releasing employees on a mass 3 minute zoom call. This scenario caught national attention and the number of people that have were unemployed during late May skyrocketed. As well as getting unemployed very few are on the Pandemic Unemployment Assistance Program. It is difficult to understand this situation and tough to deal with, but I feel your graph gave very insightful idea of the situation as well as your statistics. I thought you did a great job giving the information and showing the main idea, but next time I would work on your grammar for the audience to better interpret your words, so there isn't mixed meanings.
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ReplyDeleteAs seniors in high school, we may not be thinking about the finical impact for older generations. I feel that your blog brought a great insight and perspective into your writing. During the summer I worked as a camp counselor, at Good Times Summer Day Camp in Waukesha. The business was deemed essential, I worked full time and was responsible for kids in ranging age groups. Listening to how younger children from 3-7 talking about COVID, it's a shock to think about how a younger mind will understand a pandemic and its affects. When asked to wear masks when going indoors, some children were scared and unfamiliar with the concept. I reminded them that we wear masks to stay safe and healthy, though I could tell there was still confusion and fear about the environment itself. Overall I loved that you included real evidence to support your claim in your introduction. I felt that this post was very easy to react to and engage with because of the relatable content. During these times we have all faced struggles and it is good to connect and know the impact around you. Nice work!
ReplyDeleteIt's so crazy that something that was seemingly so insignificant in our lives eventually had such an impact on everyone. So many families truly did suffer from things like job losses and unemployment from this virus. As this was starting, many of us were obviasely skeptical of it's severity but as it continued to grow and people started to lose their jobs we realized how serious it really was. As sad and scary as this all is we will hopefully be able to have a quick recovery throughout the world as this virus starts to go away. After the initial burst of unemployment, the rates started to drop back down to more acceptable levels and we hope that they will continue to drop so that parents will be able to feed their families and the quality life will hopefully begin to get better.
ReplyDeleteYou'd think as students that they have it worse when it came to the pandemic but this changed my mine completely. I thought you know me not being in school just made my grades worse but it made others worse. People just being let down out of nowhere is crazy and scary. Hopefully everyone can get back on there feet and bounce back to support for themselves and there families.
ReplyDeleteMy understanding of how the pandemic affected jobs across America completely changed after reading this,I never realized how large the spike in unemployment was when Covid began taking over. To my understanding, the rate of unemployment has started to decrease from the program called "Pandemic Unemployment Assistance" which gave people who were struggling or didn't have jobs help through the pandemic.
ReplyDeleteIt's sad to say that so many people have been unemployed because of this COVID-19 and its a good thing that they came out with "Pandemic Unemployment Assistance" because if not there would so many people not having money to buy food or pay there bills so they would have nothing.
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