Brenda Olsen said she faked a smile as she helped her son, Nick, write his letter to Santa Claus, even though she knew she wouldn’t be able to buy him a Christmas present this year. It wasn’t until later when she was alone inside the bedroom of her Gladstone home that she allowed herself to cry.
In the months before the pandemic started, Olsen said, her life appeared on the upswing.
She had founded her own company, B Rustic and Restoration, where she made home decor out of reclaimed wood. As the business took off and she realized she could support herself and her three children, Olsen finally built up the courage to end a difficult marriage.
Then the pandemic hit and sales plummeted. The stores where she was selling her products closed temporarily and the summer fairs she had hoped to attend were canceled. Finding new work became infeasible; Nick, 12, has autism and helping him with virtual school became her full-time job.
Olsen, 38, was handed a lifeline in June when she started receiving unemployment benefits through the new Pandemic Unemployment Assistance program, which Congress established in March to aid self-employed workers and others who aren’t usually eligible for jobless benefits. Olsen receives just over $800 a month through the program, enabling her to at least make partial payments on her monthly bills and keep her internet on so her children can attend virtual school.
But Olsen and millions of other Americans are set to lose those benefits on the day after Christmas when the program expires.
“I’m terrified,” Olsen said. “It’s really, really hard to stay positive. I get up every morning, make breakfast, play with my kids, make them think everything is fine, and then make it back into my room where I can lock the door and cry.”
The Oregon Employment Department estimates that 70,000 Oregonians could lose their unemployment benefits on Dec. 26 when Pandemic Unemployment Assistance (PUA) and a separate program that offers extended benefits to those that have exhausted their regular unemployment expire.
Over 3,000 Oregonians could lose benefits even sooner as another extended benefits program that the state offers to individuals who have exhausted their regular unemployment drops from 20 weeks to 13 weeks on Dec. 13. The state is required by federal law to reduce the extended benefits once the unemployment rate falls below 8%. Oregon’s unemployment rate is currently 6.9%.
Congress created the PUA program to cushion the impact of the pandemic for entrepreneurs, gig workers and others who typically don’t pay into the unemployment insurance program – and as a result, usually don’t receive jobless benefits. Many of the relief programs Congress authorized in March lapse at the end of the year, including PUA.
Republican senators are chafing at Democratic proposals to spend more than $2 trillion on another stimulus bill, wary of deepening the federal deficit as the broader economy recovers. The GOP favors a relief package around $500 million.
In response, Democrats are making a PUA extension a rallying cry as they seek a big new stimulus. Oregon senators Ron Wyden and Jeff Merkley and 30 other Democrats sent a letter to Senate leadership Tuesday urging them to take up legislation to extend PUA and the program offering extended benefits. Wyden and four other Democratic senators also introduced legislation Tuesday that would extend the two programs, as well as reinstate a $600 weekly federal unemployment boost that expired in July.
But a divided Congress has thus far given little indication that it will reach a compromise on a relief bill before the benefits expire.
“I’m devastated,” Olsen said. “Those are our elected officials who are supposed to keep us safe, they are supposed to speak for us, they are supposed to make sure our world continues and because of their own agendas, I’m going to be homeless and so are thousands of other people.”
The unemployment programs are due to expire at the same time that Oregon’s foreclosure and residential eviction moratoriums are also ending, which could lead to a wave of evictions at the beginning of next year. Oregon lawmakers have been working on bills to extend the moratoriums, but it is unclear whether there is consensus on the proposals and Gov. Kate Brown has yet to call a December special session, which would be needed for lawmakers to take up the policies before the current moratorium expires.
Jenna Ryan, 37, is among many Oregonians who have struggled to keep up with rent during the pandemic.
Ryan’s Portland company, Cascade Event Collective, does event design and audio and visual production at festivals, weddings and art events. It had been booked solid for the year before the pandemic but its events were all canceled in March. With no work on the horizon, Ryan took steps to begin to dissolve the company by selling off equipment, getting rid of her warehouse space and canceling her business insurance.
She applied for PUA as soon as the program launched in March but it took months for her to get approval from the Oregon Employment Department, whose ancient computer systems were wholly incapable of handling a flood of claims during the heart of the pandemic. Ryan finally received a stack of checks in September, enabling her to pay off the rent she owed on her Sellwood apartment and start to replenish her savings.
But like many in the live events industry, Ryan still doesn’t know when large events will return.
She hopes to revive her business, but has also begun rethinking her career out of necessity. She is hopeful that her savings will allow her to continue keeping up with her bills in the coming months, but things will only get more difficult when the PUA program expires.
“I don’t have to worry for a few more months,” Ryan said. “But if there’s no end in sight and no extra relief in sight then, yeah, I’m quite worried.”
As new relief legislation remains stalled in Congress and Oregon continues to mull over an extension of the eviction moratorium, Samantha Meeker, 29, has been forced to consider the possibility that she could end up living in her van with her nine-year-old daughter, Emily, and seven-year-old son, Elijah.
Before the pandemic, Meeker ran a small childcare business out of her Southeast Portland home and drove for Lyft and Uber. But Meeker has not been able to work since March. She has asthma and other health conditions that make her high risk for COVID-19, and the single mother has to stay at home with her children, who are both doing distance learning.
Meeker has struggled to keep up with some of her utility bills during the pandemic, but has managed to pay her rent with her PUA benefits and money that she has borrowed from family.
But when those benefits disappear on Dec. 26, Meeker isn’t sure what she will do.
“It’s kept me in my home,” Meeker said. “I use that money to pay rent and get by monthly. With PUA ending in December, I’m terrified to see what’s going to happen next.”
