WEBVTT - Cover Story: Workers Press for Power 0:00:00.680 --> 0:00:04.680 Broadcasting from the financial capital of the world Bloomberg eleven 0:00:04.760 --> 0:00:09.360 Frio in New York to Washington, d C. Bloomberg to Boston, 0:00:09.440 --> 0:00:12.879 Bloomberg one oh six one, to San Francisco, Bloomberg nine 0:00:12.960 --> 0:00:16.040 sixty to the country Sirius XM Chado one nine team, 0:00:16.120 --> 0:00:19.280 and around the globe the Bloomberg Business app and Bloomberg 0:00:19.360 --> 0:00:25.000 Radio dot Com. This is Bloomberg Business Week Thantro and 0:00:25.000 --> 0:00:27.800 I'm Tim Stanovick the domestic cover this week. In a 0:00:27.920 --> 0:00:30.960 tense labor market, union members are authorizing strikes that are 0:00:31.280 --> 0:00:34.320 rarely seen in America, just as non union workers are 0:00:34.400 --> 0:00:37.440 quitting their jobs at record rates. The struggle underway right 0:00:37.479 --> 0:00:40.400 now over workers power in America has another under the 0:00:40.520 --> 0:00:44.160 radar front, an audacious effort with little precedent in modern 0:00:44.280 --> 0:00:48.680 US history, to turn jobless Americans into a serious political force. 0:00:49.200 --> 0:00:52.040 If this jobless lobby gets its way, it could bring 0:00:52.080 --> 0:00:55.560 about the biggest permanent changes to the nation's troubled unemployment 0:00:55.600 --> 0:00:58.640 system in decades. But first, the workers need a movement 0:00:58.680 --> 0:01:01.320 big and broad enough to force major change both in 0:01:01.400 --> 0:01:04.959 Congress and at the bargaining table. How far will workers 0:01:05.080 --> 0:01:09.680 go along with the great Resignation and strike tober the 0:01:09.760 --> 0:01:13.240 unemployed are fighting for reforms that could translate into lasting 0:01:13.319 --> 0:01:19.680 leverage by josh Idolson. As protests symbols go, the marchers 0:01:19.720 --> 0:01:23.320 could have done worse than sarcastic desserts. On the occasion 0:01:23.360 --> 0:01:26.360 of the Georgia Labor Commissioner's birthday this summer, a few 0:01:26.360 --> 0:01:31.200 dozen unemployment activists arrived outside his office building in downtown Atlanta, carrying, 0:01:31.560 --> 0:01:34.840 among other things, a fudge pie meant to resemble the 0:01:34.880 --> 0:01:37.600 one from The Help that was memorably made of poop. 0:01:38.360 --> 0:01:41.520 The chocolate held together reasonably well in the July heat. 0:01:42.040 --> 0:01:46.080 Its symbolism straightforward. We worked hard, we did what they 0:01:46.120 --> 0:01:49.960 told us to do, said unemployed flooring salesperson Lauren Crace, 0:01:50.360 --> 0:01:53.640 who was protesting in a floral blouse and ripped shorts, 0:01:53.760 --> 0:01:57.360 and then we got shipped on Chrace moved to Florida 0:01:57.400 --> 0:02:01.400 in to be closer to elderly in laws, but because 0:02:01.400 --> 0:02:03.840 she made most of her income that year back in Georgia, 0:02:04.200 --> 0:02:06.680 that's where she had to go to seek unemployment benefits 0:02:06.720 --> 0:02:10.120 after her son's daycare closed and her company laid her off. 0:02:10.760 --> 0:02:12.760 To figure that out, she spent a month on the 0:02:12.800 --> 0:02:16.520 phone with Florida's Department of Economic Opportunity, including one day 0:02:16.520 --> 0:02:19.640 when she waited on hold for ten hours. Then she 0:02:19.720 --> 0:02:23.359 spent another month wrangling with both states before she received support. 0:02:24.080 --> 0:02:27.000 Others fared worse, as she saw in a Facebook group 0:02:27.040 --> 0:02:30.320 she created that quickly swelled with Georgians in search of help. 0:02:31.080 --> 0:02:33.720 More than nine million Americans lost their jobs to the 0:02:33.720 --> 0:02:36.960 coronavirus and got no help from Washington, according to a 0:02:37.000 --> 0:02:40.399 recent Bloomberg Business Week review of federal and state data. 0:02:40.919 --> 0:02:45.680 Everybody kind of got forgot about Chrais, says now American workers. 0:02:45.919 --> 0:02:49.320 The ones involuntarily benched during the pandemic and the ones 0:02:49.360 --> 0:02:51.839 who labored through it at great risk so others could 0:02:51.840 --> 0:02:55.880 stay fed, or entertained or alive, are now doing their 0:02:55.919 --> 0:03:00.000 best to be impossible to ignore. Private sector union members 0:03:00.000 --> 0:03:04.000 are authorizing strikes at a rate rarely seen in modern America, 0:03:04.080 --> 0:03:07.720 with more than one thousand workers recently threatening or mounting 0:03:07.720 --> 0:03:19.639 work stoppages in healthcare, higher education, telecommunications, transportation, television, mining, manufacturing, music, metals, oil, carpentry, whiskey, 0:03:19.680 --> 0:03:25.960 and cereal. The internet dubbed October hashtag Striketober. Non union 0:03:25.960 --> 0:03:28.640 workers are voting with their feet as well, fueling a 0:03:28.720 --> 0:03:31.919 labor market reckoning that's become known as the Great Resignation. 0:03:32.760 --> 0:03:35.560 On October twelfth, the U S Bureau of Labor Statistics 0:03:35.600 --> 0:03:38.400 reported that an unprecedented two point nine percent of the 0:03:38.640 --> 0:03:42.800 entire workforce, some four point three million people quit their 0:03:42.880 --> 0:03:45.680 jobs in the month of August, even as the government 0:03:45.720 --> 0:03:48.720 was confirming it would nuke extra jobless benefits in hopes 0:03:48.720 --> 0:03:51.640 of forcing people to work. And all of this is 0:03:51.720 --> 0:03:55.120 happening as the federal government wrangles over President Joe Biden's 0:03:55.120 --> 0:03:59.640 infrastructure bill. The legislation could transform the supply of childcare 0:03:59.720 --> 0:04:02.720 job and the penalties for union busting, and if Chris 0:04:02.800 --> 0:04:05.960 and her comrades get their way, make the biggest permanent 0:04:06.040 --> 0:04:10.080 changes to the country's troubled unemployment system in decades. It's 0:04:10.120 --> 0:04:13.160 a moment with the flavor of nineteen forty six, the 0:04:13.200 --> 0:04:15.600 beginning of a period of massive strikes by what we 0:04:15.680 --> 0:04:20.320 now call essential workers. They unleashed grievances they'd bottled up 0:04:20.320 --> 0:04:23.680 while getting the country through World War Two, partly through 0:04:23.720 --> 0:04:27.000 a series of strikes that included one in ten American workers. 0:04:27.400 --> 0:04:30.720 They ushered in a rare period where employees mediaan pay 0:04:31.200 --> 0:04:34.839 rose hand in hand with their productivity. To recapture that 0:04:34.960 --> 0:04:37.840 sort of leverage, US labor will need a movement that 0:04:37.920 --> 0:04:43.120 mobilizes enough people to force reforms. Unemployment benefits are controversial because, 0:04:43.480 --> 0:04:46.400 even as stingy and unreliable as they are in the US, 0:04:46.800 --> 0:04:49.680 they give workers a little more leverage against bosses by 0:04:49.760 --> 0:04:52.880 making them a little less desperate to accept a mediocre offer. 0:04:53.440 --> 0:04:56.360 They also help people feed themselves while out of a job, 0:04:56.760 --> 0:05:00.279 and help the economy avoided downward spiral where no one's 0:05:00.279 --> 0:05:03.920 getting hired because no money is getting spent because everyone's 0:05:03.960 --> 0:05:07.640 out of work. Last year, the immediacy and magnitude of 0:05:07.680 --> 0:05:11.200 the pandemic were compelling enough for both parties in Congress 0:05:11.240 --> 0:05:14.400 to get on board with emergency supplemental benefits of first 0:05:14.480 --> 0:05:18.120 six hundred dollars a week, then three hundred dollars. That 0:05:18.160 --> 0:05:21.680 sense of urgency didn't extend, however, to actually getting the 0:05:21.720 --> 0:05:24.840 money to millions of qualifying Americans who needed it, And 0:05:24.920 --> 0:05:28.000 this year, as spring turned to summer, twenty six states 0:05:28.000 --> 0:05:30.520 announced they would end the extra benefits earlier than the 0:05:30.520 --> 0:05:34.880 federal government's labor day cut off. Protests among the unemployed 0:05:34.920 --> 0:05:38.120 emerged throughout the country too. In such places as the 0:05:38.160 --> 0:05:41.960 Las Vegas Strip, downtown New Orleans, and the US Capital. 0:05:42.480 --> 0:05:45.720 At the time of the Atlanta demonstration, Georgia had already 0:05:45.720 --> 0:05:49.560 cut off supplemental benefits and nixed social distancing rules, but 0:05:49.640 --> 0:05:52.839 the local Labor Department office remained fenced off and closed 0:05:52.839 --> 0:05:55.280 to the public, as it has been since the beginning 0:05:55.279 --> 0:05:58.680 of the pandemic. Chrace and the other protesters marched with 0:05:58.760 --> 0:06:03.000 signs saying let us in, answered only by banners urging 0:06:03.080 --> 0:06:06.360 job seekers to check out the postings on the agency's website. 0:06:07.000 --> 0:06:11.040 This system has failed, us Chrais said. Over the summer, 0:06:11.440 --> 0:06:15.760 activists failed to persuade lawmakers that extending the emergency benefits 0:06:15.760 --> 0:06:18.960 would help the recovery more than employers claimed this sort 0:06:18.960 --> 0:06:22.320 of alternative minimum wage would hurt it. The data tend 0:06:22.360 --> 0:06:25.560 to support the activists, but a funny thing happened over 0:06:25.560 --> 0:06:29.760 the past couple of months. The protests continued. They've been 0:06:29.800 --> 0:06:34.040 buoyed by Unemployed Action, an advocacy group that's working with 0:06:34.200 --> 0:06:37.720 little modern precedent in the US to mobilize the lobbying 0:06:37.760 --> 0:06:42.120 power of the jobless. Crace's seventeen thousand member Facebook group 0:06:42.120 --> 0:06:45.000 for Georgians who struggled to get unemployment insurance during the 0:06:45.000 --> 0:06:48.560 pandemic is one of many grassroots efforts that have linked 0:06:48.600 --> 0:06:52.160 up with Unemployed Action. The national campaign is backed by 0:06:52.160 --> 0:06:55.719 the Center for Popular Democracy, a progressive advocacy group with 0:06:55.800 --> 0:06:59.040 funding from unions and the foundations of Facebook co founder 0:06:59.120 --> 0:07:04.000 Dustin Moscovite and billionaire George Soros. Like Strike Tober in 0:07:04.040 --> 0:07:07.760 the Great Resignation, their work is attracting notice in Congress, 0:07:08.000 --> 0:07:11.160 says Judy Conti, the director of Government Affairs at the 0:07:11.240 --> 0:07:15.960 National Employment Law Project, which advocates for workers. Some members 0:07:16.000 --> 0:07:19.520 of Congress are absolutely paying attention, and they understand that 0:07:19.560 --> 0:07:22.360 there's a different level of worker engagement than ever before, 0:07:22.600 --> 0:07:26.720 she says. Proposals for less temporary fixes to the unemployment 0:07:26.760 --> 0:07:30.920 system were introduced this fall by powerful advocates in both Houses, 0:07:31.280 --> 0:07:36.000 including Democrats Alexandria Occasia Cortez, representative of New York, and 0:07:36.120 --> 0:07:40.680 Ron Wyden, the Senator from Oregon. Workers haven't won much yet, 0:07:40.880 --> 0:07:44.280 and the millions in crisis can't just protest forever, but 0:07:44.360 --> 0:07:47.120 the pandemic has served as a magnifying glass for all 0:07:47.200 --> 0:07:52.080 sorts of American deficiencies and pathologies. Now whether on Kellogg's 0:07:52.080 --> 0:07:55.520 picket lines or at sailboat protests near West Virginia. Senator 0:07:55.600 --> 0:07:59.320 Joe Mansion's yacht workers are wrestling with COVID's long term 0:07:59.400 --> 0:08:03.440 legacy for US labor. If the emerging jobless lobby can 0:08:03.520 --> 0:08:07.080 win a stronger benefit system, unemployed action will have played 0:08:07.120 --> 0:08:14.960 a significant part without COVID supplements. US unemployment insurance is 0:08:15.040 --> 0:08:18.960 meager compared with benefits in peer countries. Delivering beneficiary is 0:08:19.040 --> 0:08:22.960 roughly of their prior income on average, too little to 0:08:23.000 --> 0:08:25.880 stave off a crisis for those most in need. It 0:08:26.000 --> 0:08:30.440 also excludes millions of people, including many temps, part timers, 0:08:30.560 --> 0:08:35.200 gig workers classified as contractors, undocumented immigrants, and people who 0:08:35.320 --> 0:08:39.760 quit their jobs because of domestic violence or child care needs. Also, 0:08:39.920 --> 0:08:43.200 the present system doesn't require employers to tell workers such 0:08:43.200 --> 0:08:46.880 a benefit exists. Part of the problem is that unemployment 0:08:46.920 --> 0:08:50.480 insurance is a patchwork. Each state funds and regulates its 0:08:50.520 --> 0:08:54.400 own UI system, meaning state officials have incentives to reduce 0:08:54.440 --> 0:08:57.480 aid to their unemployed constituents as a means of lowering 0:08:57.520 --> 0:09:01.040 the tax burden on employers who lay off workers. Some 0:09:01.160 --> 0:09:03.400 states max out at less than three hundred dollars a 0:09:03.440 --> 0:09:06.200 week for as few as twelve weeks and make it 0:09:06.240 --> 0:09:10.839 difficult to claim benefits. In one extreme example in Atlanta, 0:09:11.000 --> 0:09:14.000 laid off mortgage professor Camille Taylor had to make one 0:09:14.360 --> 0:09:17.320 and sixty phone calls to reach a human being. She 0:09:17.440 --> 0:09:20.240 then waited five months for her paperwork to be approved. 0:09:20.920 --> 0:09:24.320 This tends to decrease labor costs by limiting workers ability 0:09:24.360 --> 0:09:27.720 to hold out for better offers. One big missing piece 0:09:27.760 --> 0:09:31.000 of leverage among the jobless has usually been collective action, 0:09:31.480 --> 0:09:35.160 says political scientist Francis Fox Piven, who co authored the 0:09:35.200 --> 0:09:39.320 book Poor People's Movements. Unemployed people have been severed from 0:09:39.360 --> 0:09:42.880 their relationship with each other. She says, they've also been 0:09:42.920 --> 0:09:46.640 severed from their relationship with their primary antagonist, their employer. 0:09:47.600 --> 0:09:52.480 Organizing jobless Americans is hard. People don't identify as unemployed 0:09:52.559 --> 0:09:55.840 the way they do as teachers or coal miners. Some 0:09:55.960 --> 0:09:58.760 blame themselves for being out of work, or worry that 0:09:58.800 --> 0:10:01.880 others will, or fear that becoming a poster child for 0:10:01.960 --> 0:10:06.239 unemployment will hurt their career prospects. For others, the isolation 0:10:06.280 --> 0:10:11.440 of unemployment, especially during the pandemic, has hardened pessimism into hopelessness. 0:10:12.120 --> 0:10:15.480 Yet the desperation of the pandemic helped catalyze the emergence 0:10:15.480 --> 0:10:19.160 of unemployed Action. In the early days of the lockdowns, 0:10:19.400 --> 0:10:22.640 Rachel Deutsch, then the director of Worker Justice Campaigns at 0:10:22.640 --> 0:10:25.520 the Center for Popular Democracy, called a bunch of her 0:10:25.559 --> 0:10:29.840 employers fifty four affiliated advocacy groups around the country. She 0:10:29.920 --> 0:10:32.880 wanted to develop strategies to lobby for paid sick leave 0:10:33.000 --> 0:10:37.320 and other long time worker priorities, but affiliates reported back 0:10:37.360 --> 0:10:40.360 that they were overwhelmed with pleas for help from members 0:10:40.360 --> 0:10:43.199 who've just been laid off. So Deutsch and her colleagues 0:10:43.240 --> 0:10:47.280 at CPD and its sibling political group switched gears. They 0:10:47.320 --> 0:10:52.320 created Unemployed Action in June, using Facebook, phone banking, word 0:10:52.320 --> 0:10:55.480 of mouth, and ground level recruits such as Crace to 0:10:55.559 --> 0:10:59.359 ask jobless workers to attend protests or share their stories. 0:11:00.040 --> 0:11:02.800 They also created a fund to assist members in need. 0:11:03.720 --> 0:11:05.960 What you heard a lot was people from all different 0:11:05.960 --> 0:11:09.920 experiences going through this unifying experience of needing the government 0:11:09.960 --> 0:11:12.400 to be there for them and often finding that it 0:11:12.440 --> 0:11:16.200 was not, says Deutsch, who now consults for CPD. While 0:11:16.280 --> 0:11:19.200 caring for her own mom and kids, there was this 0:11:19.240 --> 0:11:22.840 opportunity to build solidarity and a shared vision for what 0:11:22.920 --> 0:11:25.320 our economy should be like and how we should care 0:11:25.360 --> 0:11:30.000 for one another. Affiliate groups soon began to organize protests, 0:11:30.040 --> 0:11:32.680 such as a sleepout on the sidewalk outside the Georgia 0:11:32.760 --> 0:11:37.479 Labor Department headquarters. Things got tense when state employees confiscated 0:11:37.480 --> 0:11:41.280 the protesters rented porta potties, but they released the toilets 0:11:41.320 --> 0:11:44.880 after police arrived. The agency says the protesters didn't have 0:11:44.920 --> 0:11:48.520 the necessary permit. Shannon Hussey, who had set up her 0:11:48.559 --> 0:11:52.320 own bustling Facebook group in Wisconsin, says she fielded several 0:11:52.360 --> 0:11:55.880 emails from Deutsch before deciding to team up. Hussey had 0:11:55.920 --> 0:11:58.840 been on a family vacation in Aruba when the lockdown 0:11:58.880 --> 0:12:02.560 swept across the u US, emptying Chicago's O'Hare airport for 0:12:02.600 --> 0:12:05.960 their return trip. The one thousand dollars a year she 0:12:06.040 --> 0:12:08.840 made from public speaking and consulting as a mental health 0:12:08.880 --> 0:12:13.080 expert vanished almost instantly, but as a freelancer, she was 0:12:13.160 --> 0:12:17.360 excluded from normal unemployment insurance. The out of pocket costs 0:12:17.400 --> 0:12:19.960 for in home care for her teenage daughter with special 0:12:20.000 --> 0:12:23.840 needs quickly became unaffordable. She and her husband made the 0:12:23.840 --> 0:12:26.800 agonizing choice to send her to a group home, where 0:12:26.800 --> 0:12:29.160 she remained for a few months until the family could 0:12:29.200 --> 0:12:32.959 get help from a temporary jobless assistance program Congress created 0:12:33.000 --> 0:12:36.920 for contractors. It was a pretty big blow. It disrupted 0:12:36.960 --> 0:12:40.079 her life, and it's hard as a parent those decisions 0:12:40.400 --> 0:12:43.640 to realize you can't provide for your kid, says Hussey, 0:12:43.720 --> 0:12:47.160 who's organized sleepouts at the homes of Tony Evers, Wisconsin's 0:12:47.160 --> 0:12:51.760 Democratic governor, and Robin Voss, its Republican Assembly speaker. We 0:12:51.840 --> 0:12:55.000 had this emergency system set up to jump in, almost 0:12:55.040 --> 0:12:58.640 like a generator for the country, and that generator wasn't clicking, 0:12:59.080 --> 0:13:02.400 Hussey says. All these people that thought there was a 0:13:02.520 --> 0:13:05.320 light that was going to come on, they weren't getting it. 0:13:05.800 --> 0:13:10.160 All they had was a broken bulb. Today, Unemployed Actions 0:13:10.160 --> 0:13:13.320 sprawling network is still working to lobby lawmakers around the 0:13:13.360 --> 0:13:17.040 country and push its way into the main stream. Besides 0:13:17.080 --> 0:13:21.760 in person protests, the broader organization swarms lawmakers on social media, 0:13:22.120 --> 0:13:25.520 trains members in skills such as bird dogging, trying to 0:13:25.559 --> 0:13:29.520 create popular videos by putting politicians on the spot, consults 0:13:29.520 --> 0:13:32.839 on think tank's policy proposals, and co ordinates events through 0:13:32.880 --> 0:13:37.320 its sixteen thousand member national Facebook group moderated by volunteers 0:13:37.880 --> 0:13:41.440 by design, Unemployed Action brings together some people for whom 0:13:41.480 --> 0:13:45.000 economic instability is old news, and others who were living 0:13:45.040 --> 0:13:49.040 comfortably pre COVID. This can lead to friction, but the 0:13:49.080 --> 0:13:52.080 group's day to day challenges are more basic. One laid 0:13:52.080 --> 0:13:55.040 off worker who planned to join July's protest in Atlanta 0:13:55.320 --> 0:13:58.120 decided to stay home rather than use up gas driving 0:13:58.120 --> 0:14:01.760 her s u V eighty miles round rip. Another volunteer 0:14:01.800 --> 0:14:05.319 abruptly moved to Missouri. She found a job there after 0:14:05.440 --> 0:14:13.520 months of searching. The Biden Infrastructure Package is Unemployed Actions 0:14:13.559 --> 0:14:17.880 biggest tests so far. Widen and Acacio Cortes have put 0:14:17.920 --> 0:14:20.720 forward measures for the final bill that would require states 0:14:20.760 --> 0:14:24.880 to offer twenty six weeks of unemployment benefits, add eligibility 0:14:24.960 --> 0:14:27.800 for workers looking for part time jobs, and demand that 0:14:27.840 --> 0:14:31.040 employers tell departing workers how to apply for the benefits. 0:14:31.680 --> 0:14:35.320 Lawmakers plan to use the Reconciliation Package to ease passage 0:14:35.400 --> 0:14:38.720 of the massive infrastructure bill, but that will still require 0:14:38.760 --> 0:14:42.560 the votes of every single Democrat, including Mansion and others 0:14:42.600 --> 0:14:44.960 who have been pushing to shrink the bill's price tag. 0:14:45.400 --> 0:14:49.480 In September, Hussey logged into a virtual town hall Unemployed 0:14:49.480 --> 0:14:52.880 Action held with Widen, who chairs the Senate Finance Committee. 0:14:53.440 --> 0:14:55.960 She asked him to spell out his strategy for ensuring 0:14:56.000 --> 0:14:59.000 that unemployment reform does end up in the final bill. 0:14:59.720 --> 0:15:01.880 I'm going to come in as chairman of the committee, 0:15:02.000 --> 0:15:05.240 and I'm going to fight like hell, Widen said. But 0:15:05.360 --> 0:15:08.920 even winning the incremental changes he's pushing, he added, is 0:15:08.960 --> 0:15:12.120 going to be a challenge. As you've seen, not many 0:15:12.200 --> 0:15:15.800 people back here are talking about this anymore. The Biden 0:15:15.800 --> 0:15:20.040 administration has been sending mixed and sometimes muddled messages. In 0:15:20.080 --> 0:15:23.560 an open letter to Congress in August, Labor Secretary Marty 0:15:23.640 --> 0:15:27.680 Walsh and Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen called long term UI 0:15:27.800 --> 0:15:32.080 reform a critical issue that Congress should take up via reconciliation, 0:15:32.640 --> 0:15:35.720 while also saying it was appropriate for the crisis inspired 0:15:35.720 --> 0:15:39.440 benefit boost, which was always intended to be temporary, to 0:15:39.640 --> 0:15:43.640 expire on Labor Day as scheduled. In lieu of that support, 0:15:43.720 --> 0:15:47.120 they suggested states could use unspent funds from this year's 0:15:47.160 --> 0:15:50.720 American Rescue Plan to help jobless workers wherever the delta 0:15:50.800 --> 0:15:53.840 variant was posing short term challenges to the labor market. 0:15:54.520 --> 0:15:56.840 In an interview with Business Week a couple of hours 0:15:56.880 --> 0:15:59.880 after the publication of the open letter, Walsh put it 0:16:00.000 --> 0:16:03.800 a little differently. If Florida has to shut down, Let's 0:16:03.800 --> 0:16:06.280 say the COVID numbers continue to climb in the next 0:16:06.320 --> 0:16:08.560 week or two and it gets to the point where 0:16:08.560 --> 0:16:10.800 people are just afraid to go outside their front door, 0:16:11.040 --> 0:16:13.400 he said, then there's going to have to be a 0:16:13.440 --> 0:16:15.640 safety net there for the families that can't go to 0:16:15.680 --> 0:16:19.400 work because their industry shut down. So far, zero states 0:16:19.440 --> 0:16:21.480 have announced plans to take the White House up on 0:16:21.520 --> 0:16:24.520 its suggestion they deploy rescue Plan funds for that purpose. 0:16:25.240 --> 0:16:28.920 Some of the jobless lobbies staunchest advocacy partners have entered 0:16:28.920 --> 0:16:32.760 the government this year, including Michelle Evermore, now a senior 0:16:32.800 --> 0:16:36.640 adviser on unemployment insurance at the Labor Department. That hasn't 0:16:36.680 --> 0:16:40.320 stopped the administration from disappointing advocates, as when the White 0:16:40.320 --> 0:16:44.000 House chose not to resist Red States cutting off extended benefits. 0:16:44.000 --> 0:16:48.480 Early in late August, Evermore joined Unemployed Actions weekly Zoom 0:16:48.520 --> 0:16:51.040 call to talk up the Labor Department's efforts to help 0:16:51.080 --> 0:16:54.200 state systems improve. At the end of a question and 0:16:54.240 --> 0:16:56.880 answer session, Deutsch told her the group would like a 0:16:56.920 --> 0:17:00.000 little bit more public leadership from Walsh on the knee 0:17:00.040 --> 0:17:03.480 to extend benefits and overhaul you I. We would just 0:17:03.560 --> 0:17:07.920 really urge him to use his bully pulpit. Deutsch said, thanks. 0:17:08.160 --> 0:17:12.800 Evermore replied. Asked about her former comrades frustration with her 0:17:12.840 --> 0:17:16.479 current colleagues, Evermore says the department lacks authority to do 0:17:16.600 --> 0:17:21.040 some things advocates want, including stopping states from cutting off benefits. Early. 0:17:21.840 --> 0:17:25.920 My feeling is that you I reform is urgently needed yesterday, 0:17:25.960 --> 0:17:29.240 but it didn't happen yesterday, so maybe it can happen tomorrow. 0:17:29.560 --> 0:17:33.000 She says. If unemployment goes back down and people stop 0:17:33.000 --> 0:17:36.399 paying attention to unemployment insurance, then we lose our window 0:17:36.480 --> 0:17:39.880 to do anything to get some of Widen's platform into 0:17:39.880 --> 0:17:43.199 the final legislation. Unemployed Action plans to keep up the 0:17:43.200 --> 0:17:47.399 pressure with members calling their lawmakers and recording personal video 0:17:47.480 --> 0:17:50.520 messages to spread on Twitter and maybe project onto the 0:17:50.520 --> 0:17:55.800 walls of senators offices. Stop dancing, do something. Jobless. New 0:17:55.880 --> 0:17:58.960 York retail worker Nicole Marie Poleck says in a video 0:17:58.960 --> 0:18:02.600 message to Senate Mature leader Chuck Schumer, the challenge that 0:18:02.640 --> 0:18:05.280 we have been facing has been trying to jump at 0:18:05.280 --> 0:18:08.439 a political moment of opportunity that is urgent and also 0:18:08.760 --> 0:18:12.399 very very crowded. Deutsch says, the thing with you I 0:18:12.760 --> 0:18:14.879 is that the urge to look away is so strong, 0:18:15.359 --> 0:18:17.720 and so how do you create more situations where you 0:18:17.800 --> 0:18:22.240 can't look away? Whatever unemployed action achieves this time, she says, 0:18:22.640 --> 0:18:25.160 there will be more work left to do. The group 0:18:25.240 --> 0:18:27.760 is counting on the bonds created over months of zoom 0:18:27.840 --> 0:18:31.040 huddles to keep people engaged even after they find work. 0:18:31.760 --> 0:18:34.760 Even without factoring in COVID, the US is only ever 0:18:34.840 --> 0:18:37.600 a decade or so away from the next recession, when 0:18:37.600 --> 0:18:40.800 the unemployment insurance system will let people down again if 0:18:40.800 --> 0:18:44.520 it isn't reformed first. As with so many other problems 0:18:44.560 --> 0:18:47.920 magnified by the pandemic, the first step is just that. 0:18:48.800 --> 0:18:52.560 In between the rallying, interstate driving and caretaking for her 0:18:52.560 --> 0:18:56.320 mother in law, who has cancer, Chrace in Florida applied 0:18:56.400 --> 0:19:01.560 unsuccessfully to more than one fifty positions in healthcare, call centers, 0:19:01.600 --> 0:19:05.879 and property management, among other fields, before finally landing another 0:19:05.920 --> 0:19:09.560 flooring job managing a store a half hour's drive from home. 0:19:10.200 --> 0:19:12.960 Although she's relieved to have the steady income again, she 0:19:13.040 --> 0:19:16.480 plans to remain part of unemployed actions fight. I'm a 0:19:16.520 --> 0:19:20.560 whole new person. I think, she says, the pandemic opened 0:19:20.560 --> 0:19:23.720 my eyes. And that's this week's domestic cover story. Find 0:19:23.720 --> 0:19:26.760 me to a Bloomberg Business magazine. It's on newsstands, Onlineberg 0:19:26.800 --> 0:19:29.679 dot com, this Week dot com, and on the Bloomberg terminal. 0:19:29.840 --> 0:19:31.920 And be sure to to listen to our Bloomberg Business 0:19:31.960 --> 0:19:34.560 Week Radio program. It air's live Monday through Friday at 0:19:34.560 --> 0:19:37.159 two pm Wall Street Time on Bloomberg Radio. Watch US 0:19:37.160 --> 0:19:40.119 two on our daily broadcast. On YouTube, just search Bloomberg 0:19:40.119 --> 0:19:42.720 Global News. You can also see me on Bloomberg Quicktake, 0:19:42.800 --> 0:19:46.159 available at Bloomberg dot com, slash qt, and streaming platforms 0:19:46.160 --> 0:19:49.920 like Roku, Apple TV, Samsung TV, and more. I'm Tim Stanovick, 0:19:50.000 --> 0:19:52.480 and I'm Carol Master. This is Bloomberg