“Not Designed for Us”: Navigating a System that Never Intended to Serve You

Designed with the 1930s white male breadwinner in mind, the UI system intentionally excluded jobs—domestic and agriculture—predominantly held by workers of color. While the onslaught of the pandemic has unveiled many of the faces within our current workforce—especially those who serve in low-wage essential, gig, temporary, and seasonal jobs typically not covered under UI—the crisis has also painfully exposed the deeply rooted inequity and racial disparities within our workforce and how workers of color have few options to protect their basic health and economic well-being.

Making up less than 29 percent of our nation’s total workforce, Black and Latinx people disproportionately work in essential and precarious jobs offering less than a living wage. Workers of color also occupy the vast share of our low-wage jobs. The Brookings Institution found that Black and Latinx workers made up a greater share of low wage workers compared with white workers: 54 percent, 63 percent, and 36 percent, respectively. Workers of color are the engine that keep our nation running, and like domestic and agricultural workers in the 1930s, are still excluded from receiving critical benefits meant to be a source of support for “all” nationwide. The end result has been detrimental twofold: Black and Latinx workers were among the first to be laid off when the pandemic hit, bringing unemployment to new highs; and those who have continued commuting to and working essential jobs have been more exposed to the virus, putting their lives on the line to keep our economy operating.

"Nuestros trabajos son los que más están arriesgados, porque estamos en los trabajos que tienen conexión directa con otras personas (Our jobs are the ones that are most risky, because we are in jobs that have direct connection with other people),” said Felix, a taxi driver for more than 20 years from Queens, New York, in his June interview with our research team. “Los blancos se van en sus coches o trabajan en sus casas o oficinas, nosotros nos quedamos. Los trenes están llenos de gente. Estamos más expuestos. (White people go in their cars or work in their homes or offices, we stay. The trains are full of people. We are more exposed.)”

Many of his friends and neighbors travel into the city via the 7 Train to their essential jobs. “Le decimos el tren 7 que va entre Manhattan y Queens EL TREN DE LA MUERTE, porque lleva a todos los que necesitan ir a trabajar a Manhattan y vuelven enfermos, (We call the 7 Train that goes between Manhattan and Queens THE TRAIN OF DEATH, because it takes everyone that needs to go to work to Manhattan, and they come back sick,)” he added.

Felix acknowledged he traditionally would have been excluded from UI coverage and was grateful for the benefits created through The Coronavirus Aid, Relief, and Economic Security (CARES) Act, including:

• Pandemic Emergency Unemployment Compensation (PEUC), which extended the amount of time an individual could collect benefits by 13 weeks;
• Pandemic Unemployment Compensation (PUC), which provided an additional $600 of benefits (and expired on July 31); and
• Pandemic Unemployment Assistance (PUA), which expanded benefits to cover workers not typically eligible for UI, such as self-employed and gig workers.

However, in our interviews with community-based organizations and advocates, the focus moving forward (beyond the extension of PUC) was on creating measures that would help workers of colors—the self-employed workers, gig workers, temp workers, and undocumented workers—beyond the temporary assistance created in response to COVID. Many of the advocates spoke of political leaders needing to create measures that empower our entire workforce, especially those within communities of color who’re in jobs with little to no bargaining power. Many we interviewed echoed these sentiments, saying that they wouldn’t have to worry how they would weather the fallout of this crisis when the remaining benefits expire. “These benefits should be available at all times,” said Helen, a hairstylist from Louisville, Kentucky.

“You pay your taxes, and you do your thing [contributing to this economy],” she said about her experience applying for unemployment for the first time in her 35-year career in the beauty industry. While she and others working in her industry have weathered past recessions, this “came as a shock and I don’t feel like people are giving me anything, not this government.”

The Gig Economy and Workers of Color

Estimates of how many workers participate in the “gig economy” vary—ranging from 25 percent and 30 percent to as much as 40 percent of our total workforce, according to the Gig Economy Data Hub.

Determining who is represented in the gig economy, the number of hours worked, and the flexibility in that work is critical because gig workers have often been “wrongly classified” as independent contractors. This misclassification excludes them from nearly all protections and benefits for employees like unemployment insurance and workers’ compensation, according to the National Employment Law Project (NELP), and has robbed “unemployment insurance and workers’ compensation funds of billions of much-needed dollars, and [reduced] federal, state and local tax withholding and revenues, while saving as much as 30 percent of payroll and related taxes otherwise paid for ‘employees.’”

Black and Latinx workers face even greater harm due to a lack of protections, as they alone are “overrepresented in ‘gig’ work on apps like Uber, Handy, Postmates, and AmazonFlex .” While Black and Latinx workers combined make up a small share of the workforce, they represent almost 42 percent of those working for these apps, based on figures from NELP. As the economy and our workforce shifts, and “non-traditional” work becomes the norm, we must ensure that benefits such as UI and other workforce protections are extended or reformed to meet the needs of gig workers.

For some of our interviewees, a change in their classification to being seen as an employee would have lessened the headache of filing for unemployment benefits, easing the overall financial burden. Carina, an elementary school teacher’s assistant and Uber driver, had help through the school district with her UI application. She was eventually approved for benefits in late June, but her payments have been held up, possibly due to her work for Uber. “It's weird,” Carina, a single mother of one son, said in her interview. “Everybody in my family [except myself and my uncle] have gotten UI benefits; here I am and it's not done. And we have not gotten the $600 and we’re the only ones who've done the 1099 work.”

If she hadn’t done that work, she says she would have likely had no trouble in receiving her UI benefits. But taking on certain Uber requests for rides or food delivery has helped to fill in a financial gap in earnings as she continues to wait for her first UI payment. Putting on a brave face, she often questioned her current financial footing during our interview. “I don’t know if I will be able to make ends meet, but if I’m lucky, they may look at each other,” she quipped.

The Exclusion of Undocumented Workers from UI Benefits

Advocates have been pushing for UI and other benefits to be extended to undocumented workers, as more data confirms that these workers are paying handsomely into state UI and other programs with their taxes. Each state system is backed by an Unemployment Insurance Trust Fund, which is financed through a tax paid by employers to the state and supplemented by a smaller tax they pay to the federal government. The Fiscal Policy Institute estimates that $13 billion was paid in UI taxes based on the work of undocumented immigrants since the Great Recession across the nation. In New York alone, $1.4 billion was paid in UI taxes.

The exclusion of undocumented workers creates fear and confusion for immigrants, who are legally eligible to work, about whether they are eligible for benefits. They often choose not to apply out of concern that it might impact their immigration status or trigger rules around public charge. Despite being eligible, Gloria hesitated to apply for UI because she thought it might result in having her green card taken away or negatively impact her ability to get her citizenship.

“Pues, me da un poco de miedo por que no sé si pueda haber un problema con mi green card. (Well, [I'm] a little scared because I don't know if there could be a problem with my green card [application]),” said Gloria, who is originally from Mexico and lives in Brooklyn, N.Y. She works two jobs cleaning houses and a local nightclub. “No se si afecta o no. (I'm not sure it will affect it or not)."

Call for Essential Workers Bill of Rights

Less than one in five Black workers (19.7 percent), and about one in six Latinx workers (16.2 percent), are able to work remotely, based on a report from the Economic Policy Institute. The EPI report showed the workers most affected were in leisure and hospitality, agriculture, transportation, and retail—industries highly at risk of job loss due to social distancing measures or COVID exposure for frontline workers. Advocates we interviewed pointed out that state and local governments, as well as the federal government, have failed to protect essential workers and provide them with benefits such as paid leave. Some advocates and policymakers have even called for legislative measures that would ensure workplace safety and empower workers, such as creating an Essential Workers Bill of Rights and a paycheck guarantee program.

“There needs to be a national pandemic policy put in place, whether it's through executive order or federal policy through Congress, that creates an essential workers bill of rights,” said Dwight Bullard, political director of the New Florida Majority. “It should apply to everyone who fell in that category this time. We still need food service and grocery stores open, but those folks need all of the resources and protections they can get, as well.”

Where We Go From Here

Our UI system isn’t designed to meet the needs of workers in jobs where Black and Latinx people are overrepresented: it excludes gig workers and undocumented workers, fails to protect essential workers, or makes it difficult for low-wage workers to access benefits.

In the early months of this pandemic, state and federal policymakers took steps to implement short-term measures that would support our workforce and the overall economy. Some of those benefits have since expired, or are at risk of expiring in the coming months. Redesigning UI to meet the needs of 21st century workers should include: expanding unemployment benefits to cover more workers, ensuring workers have access to paid leave and other benefits, standardizing the duration of benefits across the country to at least 26 weeks, ensuring a living wage, making sure that benefits cover a greater portion of workers’ wages, and protection from retaliation and the right to safe working conditions. The Bipartisan Policy Center released a recent survey that found 55 percent of Latinx and 44 percent of Black parents on unemployment insurance could not plan to return to work, or did not accept an offer to return to work, due to caregiving needs, indicating a need for dependent credits and programs that support working parents.

Policymakers should use this moment to center the needs of workers of color, to ensure that they are able to fully participate in the workforce, access benefits they’ve earned, and to protect their future economic well-being.