In a comment posted on a Federal Reserve Bank of New York blog in April, four economists argued that “the savings accumulated by US households during the pandemic, although large by historical standards, are not given the extraordinary needs Many American families seem to be “exaggerated”. “
Millions of Americans could again be plagued by financial volatility with little protection if new varieties of the virus emerge. For some, this reality has already begun.
“It was tough before the pandemic broke out,” said Maria Patton, a 57-year-old former real estate agent whose finances were ruined by a recent divorce. “And when the pandemic broke out, it became almost impossible.”
Ms. Patton, who has a teenage son, had just been hired by Nordstrom in Los Angeles when the virus increased and she was laid off. Despite an immediate application for unemployment insurance in March 2020, she remained without benefits for more than two months. She tried to find work as a nanny – which was her last job – but moved to Tennessee, where she thought the cost of living was more affordable.
When she moved in the middle of last year, she received a lump sum of US $ 15,000 back payments for every week she was eligible for Pandemic Unemployment Benefit – a federal emergency program designed to help freelancers and others not normally eligible for government benefits -Dollar. Much of that money, Ms. Patton says, went to pay off debts and “out of my pocket” for health insurance because she couldn’t afford health insurance and lived in a hotel because Nashville landlords didn’t. t like their credit situation.
Ms. Patton used more of her savings in January to relocate the two of them to Denver for a $ 25-an-hour nanny job she found online, which went well until she got Covid-19 and had to quit. Now she and her son work for Amazon Fresh, the grocery delivery service, earning $ 15 an hour. Their savings ran dry in September.
“Now I’m back to where I was,” she said. “I feel like a loser. I feel like a failure. ”She does too much to be eligible for support, but too little to be able to afford a stable apartment. She fears that she and her son will be living on their car soon after the vacation.
