States still waiting on disaster unemployment assistance - Politico

With help from Theodoric Meyer

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Quick Fix

— States seeking to tap into federal disaster unemployment assistance funds are still waiting for approval from the White House.

— Lawmakers late Tuesday night reached a bipartisan agreement on a coronavirus stimulus package, with a vote expected today.

— More than 3 million people applied for unemployment benefits last week, according to one early estimate.

GOOD MORNING! It’s Wednesday, March 25 and this is Morning Shift, your tipsheet on employment and immigration news. Send tips, exclusives, and suggestions to [email protected], [email protected], and [email protected]. Follow us on Twitter at @RebeccaARainey, @IanKullgren, and @TimothyNoah1.

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Driving the Day

STATES WAIT FOR ACCESS TO EMERGENCY BENEFITS: The three states that President Donald Trump has formally declared coronavirus disaster areas have not received the disaster unemployment assistance they had expected would follow that designation, your host reports. New York, California and Washington state all requested access to federal programs including disaster unemployment assistance, which allows workers who aren't eligible for traditional unemployment benefits, like Uber drivers and other gig-economy workers, to receive 26 weeks' unemployment benefits if their job loss is attributable to a disaster.

The Federal Emergency Management Agency, which, in conjunction with the Labor Department, manages the program that disburses disaster unemployment assistance, said that federal aid was "made available" when the president issued the three disaster declarations. But the only aid the Trump administration has so far released as a result of the declarations is for “crisis counseling.” The states' requests to access other aid programs offered under the disaster declaration, including the disaster unemployment benefits, "remain under review at this time," a FEMA spokesperson told POLITICO.

The White House is holding off on approving the three states' access to emergency unemployment assistance because the administration anticipates Congress will provide protections for workers not eligible for state unemployment benefits in the coronavirus stimulus package being negotiated on the Hill, A senior administration official told POLITICO.

On the Hill

CONGRESS HAS A STIMULUS AGREEMENT: Congressional negotiators late last night reached a bipartisan agreement on a nearly $2 trillion emergency stimulus package in response to the coronavirus pandemic after several days of talks, POLITICO’s Andrew Desiderio, Sarah Ferris and Melanie Zanona report.

Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer said he had secured a key concession from Republicans: strict oversight over $500 billion to lend to corporations that have been hit hard by the coronavirus pandemic, Andrew, Sarah and Melanie report. Democrats had criticized it as a “slush fund” that would have allowed the Trump administration to withhold details about which companies had received such loans.

Coronavirus effects

ESTIMATES SHOW MASSIVE UNEMPLOYMENT SPIKE: We won’t know until Thursday how many people filed for unemployment benefits last week, but an analysis by the left-leaning Economic Policy Institute published Tuesday estimates more than 2.6 million people across 35 states and the District of Columbia filed for unemployment last week. Extrapolated to all 50 states and D.C., that figure soars to 3.4 million, which would be by far the most claims ever recorded in a week.

Other predictions are also grim. Jacob Robbins, an assistant economics professor at the University of Illinois, estimated there will be 2.3 million claims from 37 states. The Labor Department’s report for the week that ended March 14 showed 281,000 claims, up by one third over the previous week; that increase might seem quaint when we see the numbers for the week ending March 21.

CORONAVIRUS CRUSHES HOTEL INDUSTRY: Some 44 percent of hotel employees in every state have already lost or will soon lose their jobs, according to research conducted by Oxford Economics, Cristina Rivero reports for POLITICO DataPoint.

“As of mid-March 2020, the hotel industry supported nearly 2.3 million jobs directly and over 8.3 million jobs total nationwide that included direct hotel operations, guest spending, and indirect supply-chain employment.”

View the full DataPoint graphic here. Want to add DataPoint to your POLITICO Pro account? Learn more.

In the Courts

U.S. SOCCER WANTS TO SETTLE PAY DISPUTE: The U.S. Soccer Federation’s new leaders says their priority is settling the equal pay lawsuit filed by 28 women’s national team players, Ronald Blum reports for The Associated Press.

The women seek $67 million in damages under the 1963 Equal Pay Act and the 1964 Civil Rights Act for getting paid less than the men’s team. Lawyers for the USSF created an uproar earlier this month when they argued, “The job of a [men’s national team player] carries more responsibility within US Soccer than the job of a [women’s national team] player.” The federation replaced its male president with a woman, Cindy Parlow Cone, and hired a new legal team.

“A lot of damage has been done, and I think we are going to have to rebuild that trust and rebuild the relationship, and it’s not going to happen overnight,” Cone said Tuesday. A trial is scheduled for May 5 in federal court in Los Angeles.

In the Workplace

THE 30,000-FOOT VIEW: A major coronavirus outbreak among air traffic controllers "could threaten much of the U.S. aviation system's efficiency,” POLITICO’s Brianna Gurciullo reports.

“FAA personnel at air traffic control facilities from Las Vegas to New York have tested positive in the last week, prompting closures while the buildings were cleaned. The majority of the almost one dozen facilities affected so far have been towers at airports, but two of the incidents have been at centers responsible for controlling airspace over multiple states,” she writes.

Related read: “Airline group calls for 'minimum conditions', quick action on aid to head off bankruptcies,” from POLITICO

DISPATCH FROM NYC: “Medical workers on the front lines of New York City's growing coronavirus emergency are sounding the alarm that without more equipment and stricter protocols they’ll soon be the ones in need of treatment,” POLITICO’s Amanda Eisenberg writes from New York.

Equipment shortages, she writes, have “forced workers to reuse single-use masks and wipe down face shields with bleach wipes — supplies that are also running low at even the best-appointed hospitals, according to staffers across the city’s health systems.”

CHAMBER DEFENDS LOBBYING AGAINST USE OF DEFENSE PRODUCTION ACT: Six Democratic senators sent a letter to the U.S. Chamber of Commerce on Monday demanding answers following a report in The New York Times that the trade group had lobbied the Trump administration to not invoke the Defense Production Act to ramp up production of ventilators and other medical equipment. “If these reports are true, you owe the American public an explanation for your actions,” Sens. Elizabeth Warren and Ed Markey of Massachusetts, Brian Schatz of Hawaii, Chris Murphy of Connecticut, Tammy Baldwin of Wisconsin and Sheldon Whitehouse of Rhode Island wrote.

Neil Bradley, the Chamber’s executive vice president and chief policy officer, confirmed Monday that the Chamber had lobbied against using the law. In a follow-up statement, he said that triggering the law “may do more harm than good in sectors such as pharmaceuticals and medical equipment because it creates uncertainty and confusion for the companies now working day and night to make these needed supplies.”

2020 Watch

AFSCME ENDORSES BIDEN: AFSCME endorsed former Vice President Joe Biden Monday. Biden “has a gut-level understanding of the challenges and struggles keeping working families awake at night,” union President Lee Saunders said in a statement.

Supreme Court

SCOTUS RAISES THE BAR TO PROVE RACE DISCRIMINATION: The Supreme Court on Monday raised the bar for racial discrimination claims, Jess Bravin and Brett Kendall report for the Wall Street Journal. The case, Comcast Corp. v. National Association of African American-Owned Media, involved Byron Allen, the African American owner of Entertainment Studios Network, who alleged race discrimination was behind the cable television giant’s refusal to carry channels produced by his company.

The 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals had said that Allen needed only to show that race played “some role” in Comcast’s decision. But the Supreme Court unanimously disagreed on Monday, sending the case back to the 9th Circuit to review whether Allen would have gotten the Comcast deal “but for his race.” The opinion.

What We're Reading

— "‘Bernie has a real decision to make’: Labor throws in with Biden," from POLITICO

— “The U.S. has an ugly history of blaming ‘foreigners’ for disease,” from The Washington Post

— "Trump Administration Pauses Court Proceedings for Asylum Seekers," from The Wall Street Journal

— “Ford to make face masks, ventilators and respirators in Michigan,” from POLITICO

— “Coronavirus: Safeway, union reach new agreement for pay raise, worker protections,” from The San Francisco Chronicle

— “She told the U.S. immigration agent she was HIV-positive and requested asylum. She was sent back to Mexico, without medication,” from The Washington Post

— “As Businesses Close, WeWork Tries to Lure Workers Back,” from The New York Times

— “Facing worker shortages, nation's biggest transit system cuts service,” from POLITICO

— “Health workers fear U.S. hospitals will become coronavirus hot spots,” from POLITICO

— “Governors beg for cash as unemployment claims crush states,” from POLITICO

THAT’S ALL FOR MORNING SHIFT!

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