5 people on what it’s like to be unemployed right now

The global economy has shuddered to a halt and workers are left to bear the brunt.

No corner of the global economy has been left untouched by the coronavirus’s rapid spread.

In the United States, jobless claims have soared past 26 million, pushing the country to the brink of an economic crisis not seen since the Great Depression. Experts continue to warn that despite a valiant global effort to “flatten the curve,” the virus could reemerge with renewed vigor just in time for flu season in the fall. Without a vaccine, it seems increasingly likely that economies around the world will continue to stall, and workers are poised to bear the brunt.

In response to the economic ruination, US lawmakers passed the CARES Act — an economic stimulus package designed to offer badly needed relief to individuals, large corporations, and small businesses alike. But a rocky rollout of the benefits, coupled with an overwhelming surge of new applications choking unemployment offices around the country, has left millions of workers in the dark, unsure when or even if help is coming.

Many of the newly unemployed people that Vox spoke to said they would be willing to take up work deemed “essential” — checking out groceries, driving ride share, portering at hospitals — if it meant being able to keep up with their bills and sustain their livelihoods.

“If I do catch [the virus], it’s going to be a bit worse for me, with asthma, than others,” said Mark Deeks, a 35-year-old sports analyst living in England. “But I’ve thought about that and about whether that would limit what I would be prepared to do, and the reality is no.”

Others, like 49-year-old administrative professional Thomas Inskeep, stressed the toll sudden joblessness has taken on their mental health.

“Some days I’ll get in the car and drive for half an hour, just around the roads in my town, in my neighborhood,” he said. “It’s only a couple of miles, but at least that way I’m getting some fresh air, some sunlight.”

Below are some of the stories of the newly unemployed, condensed and edited for clarity.

I’ve always been a very self-sufficient person, and maybe it’s just my pride, but I want to be able to take care of myself and others

Haley, 23, barista living in Tampa, Florida

I’ve been laid off from the craft coffee shop where I work for about a month now, and I can’t really say I’m surprised; coffee is a luxury product, and it’s not like I’m an essential worker. This is the first time I’ve been unemployed since I was 18 and fresh out of high school. The coffee shop actually does have another location that’s still open, but they didn’t offer us any work there, so that hurt a little bit.

I’ve applied to over 70 jobs since then — I have experience in animal hospitals and I’m a pharmacy technician as well, and then just administrative stuff. Pretty much just anything I think I’d be pretty competent at doing I’ve tried for, and it’s just been rough.

It’s been pretty weird to be out of work; it gets to you slowly. I’ve always been a very self-sufficient person, and maybe it’s just my pride, but I want to be able to take care of myself and others. To have the rug pulled out from under you, to have to rely on others … it hurts.

Florida has a really shitty unemployment website, and I tried for over two weeks to get benefits online — waking up at 3 am, staying up until 5 am, doing it in the middle of the day. The website will constantly kick you out, so I ended up printing out the paper application and sending it in about a week and a half ago. The system is totally overloaded, and they’ve admitted to that.

I did get my stimulus check, so that helps a lot to make sure I can still pay for my car and car insurance, because I live in a state where that’s required, but realistically $1,200 will last me maybe a month between rent and bills. I actually moved in with my boyfriend to help reduce the cost of rent because of the pandemic. It was planned for down the line anyway, but it was just like, well, there’s no better time than now.

The coffee shop management also started a GoFundMe for employees, but it hasn’t gained too much traction. I have a lot of mixed feelings about it …. full disclosure, I don’t have a lot of trust in my employer, the company that I work for. They didn’t even initially tell us about the GoFundMe, we just looked online and were like oh that’s weird, why would they start a GoFundMe without telling us about it? Some of us are worried that we’re not even going to get the funds they’ve raised.

“I occasionally have anxiety attacks and panic attacks”

Thomas Inskeep, 49, administrative professional living in Santa Cruz, California

It’s funny, in some ways I’m actually maybe better suited to deal with this because in the last few years I’ve actually dealt with quite a bit of unemployment. In 2017, I missed quite a bit of work because I was dealing with some pretty severe depression, and I was unemployed for parts of 2018 and 2019. That was really, really rough, and I ended up having to do a GoFundMe — no one wants to do that.

Courtesy of Thomas Inskeep

I had just started my most recent role through a temp agency at the end of February, an administrative role at a food distributor that sources organic food. I absolutely loved it. About a week and a half in, I was already getting a little nervous about going into work because since I have diabetes, I’m immunosuppressed, and they have an open-plan office. About the second week of March, they finally said they were moving to work from home, but I wasn’t able to perform my role from home because so much of it was dependent on me being physically in the office. At that point, no one was even wearing masks yet. So I said I didn’t feel like I could continue going in. I spoke with the temp agency and they were supportive and understanding and told me to apply for unemployment. So I did that, and my last day of work was March 13.

Through the additional unemployment benefits recently approved under the CARES Act, I’ll get an extra $600 each week through the end of July. So this week when I got unemployment, I actually got an additional $1,200, which is massive. I’m getting less than $300 a week in unemployment benefits because my last couple of jobs haven’t paid particularly well, so that money is an absolute lifeline to me. I wasn’t able to pay my bills before this.

I live in the Santa Cruz Mountains, not in a metro area, and I normally love it. But right now, it’s brutally isolating. Since I live with both depression and anxiety, I saw a psychiatrist through my old insurance who would prescribe me Xanax as needed — I occasionally have anxiety attacks and panic attacks. But I’m low on it now and I can’t get more because I’m not her patient anymore.

To be honest, for anxiety I’ve been self-medicating with booze. It’s funny, I’m not a huge drinker in general and I had basically quit drinking once I got diagnosed with diabetes, but I have done more drinking in the last month than I have at any time of my life since college. It’s kind of like, well, I have a very limited number of Xanax, so I need to reserve those for emergencies — like the last time I went to the grocery store and people weren’t social distancing. That requires a Xanax! But otherwise, I’m using liquor to cope.

“Packing up and moving in the midst of a lockdown is not easy to do, but I did it because I had to”

Mark Deeks, 35, NBA sports analyst living in England

I work in and around the NBA, which is very hard to do in the first place as an Englishman, and the NBA was one of the first dominos to fall in what’s turned out to be the closing of the entire world of sports, essentially.

I was mostly working for Sky Sports, the NBA partner in this country which is our equivalent of ESPN, but only on a freelance basis. As soon as sports ended, they stopped all freelance contracts. It’s fair enough and I don’t begrudge them that, but due to the nature of zero-hour freelance contracts, I only get paid if I work, and there is no work.

I was living just outside of London, which is still one of the priciest areas in one of the world’s most expensive countries to live in. But I couldn’t afford to stay there, so in the midst of this lockdown, I’ve had to pack up and move to a place in the middle of absolute nowhere, a pensioner’s retirement village of all places. It’s the British equivalent of Florida, except without the sun.

Packing up and moving in the midst of a lockdown is not easy to do, but I did it because I had to — I haven’t got any income. We’ve got more in the way of a social safety net than the US does, to the point where it’s gotten very complicated and convoluted how many avenues there were to apply for assistance. They ended up consolidating them into one, something known as universal credit, and that’s essentially the unemployment benefit equivalent of less than 100 pounds a week. So those who have been furloughed, you get 80 percent of your salary, but that doesn’t apply to me because I wasn’t salaried.

The supermarkets have been hiring across the industry right now, driving — I would do anything for work right now, to be honest with you, and it’s not gone well so far. As an asthmatic, I’m a little bit worried about the virus, because if I do catch it, it’s going to be a bit worse for me than others, but I’ve thought about that and about whether that would limit what work I would be prepared to do, and the reality is no. If I can be of some use, I will do those things.

I wouldn’t say I’m riddled with anxiety, just because I’m a bit resigned to never having control — I’ve never had control over this career because it’s so stop-start, it’s so high turnover. The changing nature of the media landscape has affected me, and that is constantly anxiety-inducing, so it’s not dramatically different, in that respect. It’s always a struggle — you’re bouncing around from whoever will take you to whoever will take you, strike up a good relationship but then things close down, someone leaves, it turns out the money isn’t there. It’s a difficult business that I’ve chosen.

“How can I pay for electricity or rent if I’m only making $81 a week?”

Aidan, 25, retail worker/custodian/cook, living in Missouri

I worked two part-time jobs that rolled around to be about full-time hours, one for a local charity that benefits abuse victims and one for a retail store at the mall. So I’ve had two experiences being furloughed!

The retail store very quickly took me off of the schedule about mid-March, and about a week later, the mall stores all started shutting down one by one. A week or two after that, I had to do a conference call with everybody in the district from that retail store. We were told that everybody was furloughed, en masse, from that call on. The company did pay us two weeks’ worth of money, but it averaged out to be only about $150.

I was also working at an abuse shelter that also ran a thrift store, where I would help out. I had been there for about three years, and suddenly I was furloughed — again, the reason was basically, “We don’t need you in, we have no foot traffic, we don’t need an extra person.” My boss told me that I could start cleaning the shelter as a janitor at the daycare that the shelter operates, because it’s very important everything the kids use has to be sanitized. After about a week-and-a-half to two weeks, they furloughed me from that, because they couldn’t keep paying a separate custodial position, even though it’s essential work.

Within the next few days I started the unemployment process. It was tricky for me; the directions were not clear. Before the CARES Act went into place, even though I was working two jobs, pretty much full-time, it would say that I was only eligible for $81 a week. That stressed me out because I have bills, I have an apartment, and if I don’t have much of an income, how can I pay for electricity or rent if I’m only making $81 a week?

Then, through connections that I have in town, I heard that there was a cooking job opening up a couple of towns over, about 10 miles away, at a retirement home. That’s the new job I’ve picked up, and it’s of course completely different from the retail jobs and helping people at the abuse shelter that I was used to. They’re really understaffed and they badly needed the help.

At first, I was really just rolling with the punches, that’s the type of person I am; things happen and I adjust on the fly. But within the past week, starting a new job in a new field I’ve never done before, for very long hours, and thinking, “If I don’t have this job, I could be homeless, and I don’t think I can do this job” — I just broke down.

“A lot of DJs have been doing live sets on Instagram … It’s kind of fulfilling people creatively, but financially it hasn’t been the best”

Caleb, 24, DJ living in Brooklyn, New York

I’ve been DJing for like three years now, and for the past year it’s been pretty close to full time. I heard directly from some of the spots I play that they were closing down due to the virus, but to be honest, (New York Gov. Andrew) Cuomo shut down the bars and then there was kind of just a general understanding that the gigs weren’t going to go on. Some places reached out and said, “we’re shut down, we’ll let you know when we’re back,” but for the most part it was just unspoken.

I was very anxious. My initial reaction was to check my bank account to see how much money I’d saved up. I’ve been DJing more and more full time, so it’s completely what I rely on. I did file for state unemployment benefits, maybe the second week after everything got shut down, and I got approved for unemployment, but it was like $173 a week. It’s something, but it isn’t going to help very much. There was also a DJ email chain going around with a bunch of relief funds to apply for. I’m very grateful for the people setting up these funds, but it just seems like there’s not enough to go around. Between DJs and bands and musicians and comedians and actors, there are just so many creatives out of work that are trying to tap into these funds and get some help.

A lot of DJs have been doing live sets on Instagram, and I’ve done a couple of those and asked for donations, and I actually got a decent response. It’s kind of fulfilling people creatively, but financially it hasn’t been the best. I’m going to see what I can get from unemployment and from the government, and if it’s not enough I guess I’ll drive for Pizza Hut or do bike deliveries or work at a grocery store. I don’t mind too much, and I know people my age aren’t at high risk.

I worry about the community — DJs are a pretty big part of nightlife, but they’re an additional cost for bars, and I’m just thinking about some of the places that aren’t quite as profitable and can barely afford to book DJs as it is. What if it’s even harder to book us in the future? A place like Pianos in the Lower East Side should be fine, but a lot of the smaller bars, which are the gigs I’m doing a lot of the time, might not have enough income. I’m definitely worried about it and pretty uncertain about how it’s all going to pan out. I’m trying to keep high spirits, but it’s a little hard.

“I felt betrayed”

Vina Hutchinson, 63, researcher living in Maryland

Everybody on the DC team got an email asking us to log in to this remote meeting, but I did not foresee the termination coming. I worked as a researcher based at the Library of Congress, for a third-party company with clients that liked certain topics researched. They let the entire DC team go — five people — so it wasn’t just me. They did say that when we got out on the other side of this we were invited to reapply for our jobs, but you know — that’s no guarantee of a job. My degrees are in journalism and history, and those aren’t really fields that have a lot of job prospects.

My first reaction was that I felt betrayed. I’ve worked for this company for almost three years, I’ve worked really hard, I made sure I was diligent about working 40 hours a week, about meeting deadlines. … I get that they needed to temporarily let us go for business reasons, but to just terminate us outright, was, I think, a little unfair.

They offered us a pretty good severance package, and I’ve just been waiting to get that before I apply for unemployment. Unemployment only lasts for so long, you know, so if I have money in the bank, why would I apply for benefits now when I’m going to need those down the road?

I’ll be applying for government benefits for the first time this week. I’m a little apprehensive because you’re reading a lot online about people having difficulty navigating the system. Everybody online says to apply in the middle of the night because the unemployment websites are more likely to let people on then. I’m also taking the DMV approach — never go to the DMV on Monday or Friday, you have to go mid-week.

Between my severance and unemployment, I’ll probably be okay on rent until the end of July, possibly August, but I’m not sure after that. By August 1 my severance will have definitely run out, and the $600 weekly supplement from the federal government ends at the end of July, so if I don’t have full-time employment by then, I’m going to have to look at what my options are.

I live with my adult daughter. She’s been fine, she actually just finished a school program in December and was job hunting when all of this hit. New graduates don’t really have the option of unemployment, so we’re both just taking things one day at a time and reminding ourselves that we’re in this together.

Right now, while I’m stuck at home waiting for things to open back up, I’m using it as a time to explore some of the other ideas I’ve wanted to do, like starting a history newsletter. It helps with not feeling anxious, it sort of takes your mind off of things — rather than sitting back and thinking, “Oh it’s a pandemic and it’s so horrible I’ve lost my job,” just sort of thinking, “Okay, that chapter of my life is over — what’s next here?”

Support Vox’s explanatory journalism

Every day at Vox, we aim to answer your most important questions and provide you, and our audience around the world, with information that has the power to save lives. Our mission has never been more vital than it is in this moment: to empower you through understanding. Vox’s work is reaching more people than ever, but our distinctive brand of explanatory journalism takes resources — particularly during a pandemic and an economic downturn. Your financial contribution will not constitute a donation, but it will enable our staff to continue to offer free articles, videos, and podcasts at the quality and volume that this moment requires. Please consider making a contribution to Vox today.