Will laid-off California workers get their old jobs back? Most think they will
Seven out of 10 people making new jobless claims in late April and early May expect to be recalled by their employer, a new study released Thursday found, and while they’re out of work, the government’s unusually big unemployment payments are “a life preserver for lower income workers.”
California, like the rest of the country, is seeing unprecedented numbers of claims since the coronavirus outbreak sent the economy cratering in mid-March. The Employment Development Department has paid 4.7 million claims as of last week.
While the maximum state weekly unemployment benefit is $450, the federal government has provided claimants with an extra $600 a week for four months stretching from late March through late July.
The study by California Policy Lab at UCLA called the extra money “an important lifeline” for lower income wage earners.
Most people still expect to return to their jobs, although not as many as in the early weeks of the outbreak.
The study found that at the end of March and early April, most demographic groups showed little difference in their expectation.
That number was 91% in March as the coronavirus crisis deepened.
The new study put the April 26-May 9 figure at 69.7%.
In those two weeks, the analysis found “differences across demographic groups have started to become more pronounced again, most notably by age and race” regarding expectations.
White workers, for instance, were more likely to expect a recall than black workers.
The analysts found that though situations can change, the still-large number of those expecting to be recalled “does suggest some reason for optimism about the economic effects of the COVID-19 crisis.
“While still costly both for the workers themselves and for the economy as a whole, temporary job separations in which the worker eventually returns to the same employer are likely to be much less costly than permanent separations,” it found.
In the meantime, those out of work in California who qualify for unemployment benefits can get what the study called an “important lifeline” with the extra benefits.
That program has become a target of many conservative Republicans, including President Donald Trump, who maintain it discourages people from looking for work. Trump offered his view at a private lunch with Republican senators Wednesday that was reported by The Washington Post.
The new analysis, though, makes the point that the extra money has made a big difference for those who need it most.
Typically, unemployment benefits replace roughly half of income. But the $600 payment has raised the median income replacement rate to close to 140% and nearly 170% for those who worked in retail.
The extra $600 a week “has played a substantial role in preventing near-poverty income levels” among unemployment insurance beneficiaries. Without it, the study said, the estimated median weekly benefit for regular benefits would have been $334 and as low as $230 for accommodation and food service workers.
This story was originally published May 21, 2020 at 5:30 AM.
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