Michael Ernette is on a two-month deadline.
That’s how long he estimates he can stretch his savings before he’s at risk of losing electricity, heat and housing once the unemployment programs he has been relying on end Saturday.
Mr. Ernette, 48, a Westmoreland County resident who had been working as a carpenter until his employer was bought earlier this year, is one of 558,000 people in Pennsylvania who will lose benefits with the expiration of several federal programs meant to ease the impact of the pandemic.
Some worker advocates see the end of those unemployment benefit programs as a problem, with many people still struggling to find child care or suitable work as COVID-19 variants continue to spread. But those opposed to any extensions argue that it’s time to return to a more normal mode and that the unemployment payments kept people from looking for work.
In 26 states, lawmakers even moved to end the programs before the September deadline set by the federal government. Pennsylvania was not one of them.
Saturday’s expiration affects several programs including the Pandemic Emergency Unemployment Compensation, or PEUC, which helped Mr. Ernette when the new owner of his employer led a restructuring that left him without a job.
Mr. Ernette collected jobless benefits through the traditional unemployment compensation system for the traditional 26 weeks, then switched to PEUC. It offered additional weeks of payments after claimants exhausted their traditional benefits, an effort to keep money flowing while jobs were still hard to come by.
About 178,000 people collected benefits through PEUC in the last two weeks in August, according to data from the Pennsylvania Department of Labor and Industry.
Another 395,000 collected payments through Pandemic Unemployment Assistance, or PUA, which offers jobless benefits to gig workers, independent contractors and others who weren’t eligible for traditional unemployment compensation.
Supplemental $300 checks that have been tacked on weekly through the Federal Pandemic Unemployment Compensation, or FPUC, system, are also set to expire.
“When the benefit cliff hits, there are nearly ... half a million workers in Pennsylvania who will lose access to vital benefits that have been keeping them in their homes and putting food on the table,” said Julia Simon-Mishel, an attorney with Philadelphia Legal Assistance, which has been helping people file and resolve issues with their unemployment claims.
Ms. Simon-Mishel was one of the voices that advocated to keep these unemployment programs going when they were approaching another “cliff” last December. The programs did expire that month but were reinstated days later through a federal stimulus package.
This time around, most worker advocates say it’s still too soon to end the benefits — it’s still difficult to find suitable work, while concerns about child care and health and safety risks persist.
But the conversation has changed in the months since the last expiration date. Vaccines became widely available. Health and safety restrictions lifted. Schools and child care facilities began to reopen.
Weighing their options
Laura, who lives in Greensburg and asked that only her first name be used due to the sensitive nature of the subject, had worked in food service for more than 12 years and said the wages were never enough to support herself, her spouse and her two kids. She quit her job when the virus first emerged, worried about what she could bring home to her family.
She has spent the past year and a half working on a bachelor’s degree in psychology, relying on jobless benefits to help out. She’s about 10 classes away from graduating.
“I feel like my options are either I try to struggle and get through the next couple months or I have to drop college altogether,” Laura, 30, said. “That’s what dropping this unemployment benefits thing means to me.”
Worried about the delta variant of COVID-19, she is planning to home-school her children, who are 6 and 7. That limits her options for work, but she has been applying for jobs, she said. She is hoping to avoid customer-facing roles that could expose her to the virus. But many remote jobs require a quiet household, something she can’t guarantee with two kids at home.
Mr. Ernette, the former carpenter from Westmoreland County, also planned to use the time off work to return to school. He enrolled in Westmoreland County Community College for the fall semester.
But an unexpected disruption in unemployment benefits, due to a technical error that was fixed within weeks, left him without the funds to cover tuition or books.
Since losing his job earlier this year, he has tried to tap into his past experience as a land surveyor, restaurant manager and food service worker. Some employers say he’s overqualified and they are worried he won’t stick around. Others offer a salary that he doesn’t feel he could live on. Some remote positions have broadband requirements that his mobile home could never meet.
“I’ll dig ditches. I’ve done it,” he said. “It’s not the work.”
‘It jeopardizes the … recovery’
Jobs in the region are starting to come back. Pittsburgh added 2,700 jobs from June to July, according to the most recent data available from the Department of Labor and Industry. The area added 47,000 jobs year over year.
It still has 68,900 fewer jobs than it did in July 2019, pre-pandemic.
“They guessed when the need for the benefits might end, and they guessed wrong,” said Stephen Herzenberg, the executive director of the left-leaning Keystone Research Center, based in Harrisburg.
“This will be a big cut in benefits when unemployment is still high and the economy is not fully recovered,” Mr. Herzenberg said. “And for that reason it jeopardizes the strength of the recovery … by taking money out of the pockets who spend it. It reduces demand at local businesses and reduces demand in the state.”
In July 2021 — the most recent data available — Pittsburgh’s unemployment rate was 6.2%.
In July 2020, it was 13.5%.
Time to move on?
In the case of some workers, this weekend’s deadlines won’t mean they lose all of their benefits — just enough to make things more difficult.
Jean Stevenson and Donny Friedman, both long-term banquet servers at the Wyndham Grand hotel Downtown, will see their unemployment benefits rate change — dropping so low that both are worried about covering expenses, especially their mortgage payments.
Collecting unemployment benefits is part of the nature of the cyclical hospitality job, said Ms. Stevenson, 49, of Carrick.
Usually, the banquet servers are eligible for the maximum benefit rate of $572 weekly. Throughout the pandemic, that has held up. The unemployment system was basing calculations for the benefit rate on their 2019 wages.
That changes when the federal programs end.
For the banquet servers, their rate will be based on 2020 wages. With no events, and consequently no income, both Ms. Stevenson and Mr. Friedman estimate their benefit rate will drop hundreds of dollars.
“I know it’s been very hard for everyone, and I understand the reluctance of people not booking meetings and conventions and big parties and things like that, but that’s my livelihood,” Ms. Stevenson said.
Mr. Friedman, 50, of Ross, has worked at the Wyndham since he was 19 years old. He has started looking for other jobs, but since his experience is limited to one field, he’s having trouble finding openings.
Ms. Stevenson has worked at the Wyndham for 21 years and isn’t ready to give up on that career. The position helped her raise four kids, and now she has a pension on the line.
“It’s very hard to walk away from 21 years of service because of a pandemic,” she said. “I know when the business comes back, we’ll be fine. But in the meantime, what do we do?”
Lauren Rosenblatt: lrosenblatt@post-gazette.com, 412-263-1565.
First Published: September 3, 2021, 9:45 a.m.
Updated: September 3, 2021, 10:57 a.m.
