“People Don’t Want to Work” and Other Myths about UI

Old conservative tropes still haunt vulnerable, marginalized communities, even amid a global health pandemic and resulting economic turmoil.

In calls to “reopen the economy,” Republican leadership, political analysts and pundits have voiced that enhanced federal unemployment benefits like PUC, combined with state benefits, created many disincentives for people to search for work. They have argued extending PUC would only hamper businesses’ ability to hire, further stifling the economic recovery. Yet when we talk to those affected in Black and Latinx communities, they're ready to go back to work and are more concerned about their livelihood—especially as unemployment among Black and Latinx continues to hover at high levels.

“I want to work,” Destiny, a single mother of three who works in hospitality in Chicago, shared during her July interview. “I have things I want to do with my career and for my kids.”

Destiny echoes the voices of many interviewed over the last 8 weeks who are back to work, eager to go back to work, or searching for a job in the current market despite the disproportionate impact the pandemic has had on them. Their eagerness to work counters the many dangerous and false narratives that have loomed over communities of color in prior recessions. These myths, centered on images of the “welfare queen” and “bad actors that don’t want to work,” have been so pervasive and widely accepted that political leaders have shaped or dismantled legislation based on them. This has inflicted great harm on communities of color who’re already struggling to find solid footing. Now is the time to right the course and dismantle those myths and the decades of systemic racism in our labor policies.

“The federal government should be focused on ensuring that workers can survive this crisis and that the economy gets the maximum boost possible,” Michele Evermore, senior researcher and political analyst at NELP, testified before the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform.

“Congress must ensure that workers are able to maintain an adequate income while they have no jobs because of public health necessitated shutdowns, and the unavoidably slow return to a normal economy,” she said in her testimony in June.

As of July 25, PUC has lapsed. Negotiations between Senate and House leaders have been at a standstill. Senate Republicans had proposed to slice the supplement by two-thirds to $200 per week for the following two months, and then move from a flat amount to a capped benefit equal to the difference between state benefits and 70 percent wage replacement, a plan that states have said they would be unable to implement. PUC and other benefits related to the current crisis have been a lifeline for the millions who are unemployed. The reduction would have nothing but a dire impact on the millions of people still unemployed and receiving the emergency income boost, according to new analysis by the Century Foundation.

The “go-to” myth: Republicans have proclaimed that the extra $600 a week has discouraged people wanting to work, and they have clung onto news reports highlighting interviews with a few business owners saying the weekly bonus was a potential job slayer. However, these claims are trumped by one of many basic state mandates for a person to qualify for UI—you can’t refuse to work or quit a job in order to collect unemployment. In her testimony, Evermore pointed out that under state unemployment insurance law, a person would be found ineligible for benefits if they refused “suitable work.” What’s more, the Labor Department’s Employment and Training Administration has issued guidelines designed to make it clear that refusing work to receive benefits can be considered fraud. Workers, in fact, are told they will face financial penalties if they claim benefits that they’re not qualified to receive.

A recent study from Yale University economists also has shown that workers, mostly making low wages and receiving low benefits “did not experience larger declines in employment when the benefits expansion went into effect,” the report said. Those unemployed people returned to their previous jobs at similar rates as others, according to the report. In fact, there was “no evidence that more generous benefits disincentivized work either at the onset of the expansion or as firms looked to return to business over time.”

The only truth that’s clear: The extra $600 was “a lifeline and does not create a disincentive to work,” Evermore said.

Myth: The Unemployed are Seeking to Defraud the Unemployment Insurance Benefits System

Since May 2020, federal investigators and many state legislators have sounded the alarm about a possible rise in fraudulent unemployment insurance claims as an unprecedented volume of applications are processed. Some states including Maine, Michigan, Pennsylvania, and Washington have reviewed existing and past UI accounts to catch potential fraud rings and identity theft. However, in the process, many innocent claimants have been caught in the middle, leading to their benefits being held up, according to legal services advocates. Many of those claimants are within Black and Latinx communities.

Community-based agencies have played a significant role in helping the unemployed in their regions to navigate the application process. They assist clients with grievances and appeals when they’ve been denied unemployment insurance benefits due to fraud accusations or if applications are pending for other unstated reasons. “People have applied more than once just because they are desperate to get in, and that has created fraudulent flags (in the system),” said Jocelyn Armand from the Legal Services of Greater Miami, Inc. “If [the state UI office] had communicated that the application was in, that wouldn’t have been a problem.”

In many states, UI systems are operating in the exact way they were designed to operate, with a focus on “identifying fraud”. But the people we interviewed weren’t trying to defraud the system, they’re relying on UI because they need it; and some even expressed a desire to give back if they had the resources to do so. "You have to remember it’s not just you,” said Donald, an athletic facility manager at a local college in Cincinnati, Ohio. He was furloughed in May and waited about a month before receiving his UI benefits. “It’s a lesson for myself… you have to be willing to brighten someone else's day and realize that we’re all in this together.”

Myth: All Unemployed Workers are Eligible to Receive and Can Access their Benefits

As we’ve pointed out earlier in the report, many workers are not eligible for benefits due to their type of work, and many workers that are eligible choose not to apply.

States have also implemented many barriers that make it harder for unemployed workers to apply for or receive benefits. Poorly designed websites have made it challenging for the unemployed to apply; in an effort to lower the number of people eligible for unemployment and prioritize corporate interests, states have implemented tighter restrictions ranging from narrowing the definitions of a qualifying separation event to stricter job-search requirements; and some states also have cut the duration of benefits and increased the amount a worker needs to earn in order to qualify.

These deterrents are by design. Florida’s UI system “was problematic from its inception,” said Dwight Bullard, political director of the New Florida Majority. “You can be kicked out for not putting in enough information, for putting in too much information, or a simple failure to cross a ‘T’ or dot an ‘I’. If you have not done the right thing, you are talking about months of waiting, and you’re waiting for just $275 a week.”

The Goal of These Myths: To Shame, Stigmatize, and Disincentivize Workers from Applying for Benefits they Earned

It is difficult to know how many people who are eligible for unemployment insurance have actually given up on applying or never even tried to apply. According to a survey by the Economic Policy Institute conducted in April, for every 10 people who successfully filed for unemployment insurance during the previous four weeks, up to four additional people could not gain access to the system to make a claim, and two didn’t even go through the trouble because it was too hard.

There are those who don’t apply because they don't believe they’re qualified for benefits—a common belief that’s prevalent among Black and Latinx workers. Working America’s digital canvassing program (through targeted emails, text messages, and phone calls) found that about 52 percent of Black workers who are eligible didn’t even know about the new federal benefits and the expanded eligibility requirements. But most of all, among Black and Latinx workers, “there is a feeling that the program is for them, not for me,” said Rebecca Dixon, executive director at NELP, in an interview with our team.

Some of our interviewees felt a stigma attached to being unemployed and filing for assistance. “The process is humbling,” said Ryan, a finance manager from Lexington, Ky. Furloughed in March, he still quickly applied through Kentucky’s Office of Unemployment Insurance website with the help of a friend and received his first payment by early April. “I'm not used to asking for help, more so used to giving that help. I felt anxious stepping out into the unknown.”

Ryan is anxiously waiting to be called back to work, though his employer has begun reopening. So far, they’ve called back a select few in his department, which has raised some concerns for him. He still holds on to his faith. “They know I’m a person of faith, so you know, they’ll call me.”