How I Spent My Unemployment Money and Why It Matters
I donât usually get political here, but watching the discussion of whether to extend the extra COVID $600 unemployment past July because âsome people are making more on unemploymentâ is a hard thing. So hereâs my answer, not that anyone is listening:
Firstly: so many people need that money to get by. Itâs a desperate crisis. Even now, with things reopening, very few everyday workersâ salaries are the same. Restaurants are allowing 25% capacity, so waiters are getting 25% of the tip money they usually count on. Hourly workers are being barred from overtime as the businesses look for ways to make up lost profits. There are heaps of stories of people for whom this financial support will literally be the difference between life and death.
Now, on to the argument that this lifesaving support might be too generous for a small percentage of recipients:
I make more on unemployment than I do in my job. I have a college degree in my field, and before covid gutted my industry, I worked 10+ hour days, Monday through Friday, and was more or less getting by. Money was tight, in the way that it is when you keep a mental map of which gas stations are cheaper per gallon and a $1/hr raise changed the way I was living. Iâm on standby now, meaning once business resumes I will have work--but it will be a while before business resumes, and longer still before I can go back to my usual schedule and salary.
So when I started on unemployment, I found myself with an extra $300 a month, more or less. Chump change to some folks, but not to someone like me. What did I do with that money?
*The very first thing I did was donate a bit back, to charities supporting health, human rights, and other support for those less impacted than me. Good fortune needs to be repaid in kind, and itâs only right that those who have something to give support those who do not.
*Then I went online and checked all my favorite local stores, both here and my hometown, to see which ones had transitioned to online sales. As small business, not many of them were set up for that, but of the ones that were, I purchased âluxuryâ items--books, shirts, Christmas gifts for friends--that I normally would call âbeyond my means.â Purchases of $20, $30. Trying to keep businesses afloat in hard times while also, FINALLY, buying a shirt âjust becauseâ and not because I needed a new one, without agonizing over the decision, without waiting to see if it would end up in clearance. Just, âHey, this is neat, Iâm going to get it, add to cart.â Amazing. Do some people live like this all the time?
*With the support of unemployment, I didnât have to ask my landlord--a kind and wonderful guy--to tighten his own belt and accept reduced rent payments. I was happy and proud to keep paying my rent each month in full.Â
*I went to the doctor, and then I went to the follow-up appointments scheduled, for long-term health issues I had had that I had just been living with without getting it checked out.
*I started saving aside $25 regularly so that when it becomes safe to travel again, I might be able to go on a weekend trip to Vegas with my brother. Thatâs money set aside with the intent to go right back into the economy--vendors, travel companies, hotels, performers, artists, restaurants.Â
*I bought gifts and started assembling care packages, to mail via the US post office to friends and family, in order to brighten their spirits and support them in hard times. I could afford real gifts for Motherâs and Fatherâs day, not just a handmade card.
*I bought supplies to make crafts, and I taught myself new skills--crochet, weaving. I focused on self-improvement. My new hobbies encourage me to spend on them in the future, save up for new yarn and supplies. In the past, the tighter my budget, the more I engaged my time in free endeavors, things like watching Youtube or playing free app games. Now my dollars are being fed back into the economy.
Now if that $600/week extra was cut, that means I would be making, instead of an extra $300/month, over $1600 LESS a month living on unemployment. I would suddenly not only be unable to contribute back to society, I wouldnât even be able to pay my rent, let alone buy clothes or food or gifts or any non-critical purchases like yarn or books. It would be dire straits. Cutting that support isnât just carving a bit off the top so I wouldnât be making âextra,â it would mean making half of what I need to get by on.
My point here is... so what? So what if, with the extra support, a small percentage of us make more now than we did when we were working? Especially when for so many people, their regular wages arenât even enough to live by?Â
Isnât the whole point to âstimulate the economyâ? Sometimes when people have a lot of money, they get used to the idea that that money sits in accounts somewhere, gets put in savings, gets hoarded like a dragonâs gold in a cave. Thatâs not whatâs happening here. Having the blessing of this financial support allows us to use that money to push profits at businesses, so the government doesnât have to bail them out or add more unemployed to the ranks of those who need aid. It allows us to donate money to services that work in tandem with government services to get resources to medical workers, food to the hungry, aid to the sick. It allows us to invest in disinfecting products and practices (like ordering no-contact delivery instead of going out) to keep ourselves safe and reduce the spread of disease.
That support is contingent on the pandemic crisis we are in. None of us have some sort of silly illusion that we can kick back and enjoy âhandoutsâ and not have to go back to work. I MISS work. All my coworkers talk about is getting back to work. Being trapped at home is no picnic, and itâs not the nature of the human spirit to be content with doing nothing--we would much rather carve out our own destinies, be self-sufficient, self-reliant. But the fact of the matter is, this crisis is not behind us yet, and would only worsen if the people who need it most are abandoned now.
So again, if the argument is that âsome peopleâ are making more now than they did before, I think it bears remembering that those of us who do are not rolling in bathtubs of bills like Scrooge McDuck. Weâre spending that money, dumping it like grease on the slow-grinding gears of the economy, trying to keep it running smoothly until we can all get back to work.Â
And we must remember that for every one of me, there are hundreds if not thousands for whom this financial support is not about the new revelation of having spending money left over--for them, it is what they need simply to live, to feed their babies, pay their bills, and keep the lights on. And I personally would be sickened and horrified if someone used my situation to deny them of their most basic human needs in this time of crisis, when what we really need is to be pulling together as a community and a nation.
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