Layoffs and Job Reductions

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    New Signs of Economic Distress Emerge as Trump Imperils Aid Deal

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    #masthead-section-label, #masthead-bar-one { display: none }The Coronavirus OutbreakliveLatest UpdatesMaps and CasesThe Stimulus DealThe Latest Vaccine InformationF.A.Q.AdvertisementContinue reading the main storySupported byContinue reading the main storyNew Signs of Economic Distress Emerge as Trump Imperils Aid DealA decline in consumer income and spending poses a further challenge to the recovery as jobless claims remain high and benefits approach a cutoff.Food donations were distributed on Saturday in Bloomington, Calif. Economic data released on Wednesday pointed to challenges ahead as the pandemic grinds on.Credit…Alex Welsh for The New York TimesDec. 23, 2020, 5:30 p.m. ETWith the fate of a federal aid package suddenly thrown into doubt by President Trump, economic data on Wednesday showed why the help is so desperately needed.Personal income fell in November for the second straight month, the Commerce Department said Wednesday, and consumer spending declined for the first time since April, as waning government aid and a worsening pandemic continued to take a toll on the U.S. economy.Separate data from the Labor Department showed that applications for unemployment benefits remained high last week and have risen since early November.Taken together, the reports are the latest evidence that the once-promising economic recovery is sputtering.“We know that things are going to get worse,” said Daniel Zhao, senior economist with the career site Glassdoor. “The question is how much worse.”The answer depends heavily on two factors: the path of the pandemic, and the willingness of the federal government to provide help.Congress, after months of delays, acted on Monday, passing a $900 billion economic relief package that would provide aid to the unemployed, small businesses and most households. Most urgently, it would prevent millions from losing jobless benefits at the end of this week.But on Tuesday evening, Mr. Trump demanded sweeping changes in the bill, throwing into doubt whether he would sign it.Mr. Trump’s criticism of the relief effort, which he called a “disgrace,” was that it was not generous enough: He called on Congress to provide $2,000 a person in direct payments to households, rather than the $600 included in the bill.Many economists view direct payments as among the least effective measures in the package, because much of the money would go to households that don’t need it. But beyond the merits of any specific measure, the real risk is that Mr. Trump’s comments could delay the aid, or derail it entirely.The data released Wednesday underscored the economy’s fragility. Personal income fell 1.1 percent in November and is down 3.6 percent since July, as the loss of federal assistance more than offset rising income from wages and salaries.Consumer spending, which proved resilient in the summer and fall, declined 0.4 percent, an ominous sign for small businesses trying to survive the winter. Some of the biggest drops came in categories most exposed to the pandemic’s impact: Spending on restaurants and hotels fell 3.8 percent in November, and spending on transportation, clothing and gasoline also declined.The pullback in spending is spilling over into the labor market. About 869,000 people filed new claims for state jobless benefits last week. That was down from a week earlier but is significantly above the level in early November, before a surge in coronavirus cases prompted a new round of layoffs in much of the country.A further 398,000 people filed for Pandemic Unemployment Assistance, one of two federal programs to expand jobless benefits that were set to expire this month without congressional action. Some forecasters expect the December employment report to show a net loss of jobs.“The data just underscores the importance of fiscal support,” said Aneta Markowska, chief financial economist for Jefferies, an investment bank. Without it, she said, “there would be permanent damage, and it would probably be pretty significant.”The relief bill was smaller than many economists said was needed to carry the economy through the pandemic and ensure a robust recovery. It won’t revive the hardest hit industries or undo the damage left by months of lost income for many households.A deserted hotel lobby in Beverly Hills, Calif. Consumer spending fell last month for the first time since April, with Americans cutting back in particular on restaurant meals and hotel stays.Credit…Philip Cheung for The New York TimesBut the package may be enough to forestall the wave of evictions and small-business failures that many economists warn is inevitable without it. And it should be enough to avoid a fall back into recession, which an increasing number of forecasters have said is likely without a quick injection of federal money.The Coronavirus Outbreak More

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    For Millions of Jobless, Christmas Is a Season to Endure, Not Celebrate

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    #masthead-section-label, #masthead-bar-one { display: none }The Coronavirus OutbreakliveLatest UpdatesMaps and CasesThe Stimulus DealThe Latest Vaccine InformationF.A.Q.AdvertisementContinue reading the main storySupported byContinue reading the main storyFor Millions of Jobless, Christmas Is a Season to Endure, Not CelebrateEven with new federal aid on the way, many Americans face a holiday of tough choices, trying to celebrate while dealing with pressing needs.Tresa Watson, right, with her grandson Khalil and his mother, Rachel Rucinski, at their home in Milwaukee. Ms. Watson was laid off in March.Credit…Sebastian Hidalgo for The New York TimesNelson D. Schwartz and Dec. 23, 2020, 5:00 a.m. ETNicole Craig, an unemployed mother of two from Pittsburgh, will have no Christmas gifts for her two children, and the ham she bought with food stamps will be far less than their usual holiday dinner. Months behind on her rent and utility bills, she has been struggling to afford formula and diapers. But there is one thing she couldn’t give up: a small Christmas tree and the trimmings to go with it.Ms. Craig spent the last $7 in her bank account on tinsel, a symbol of light in the darkness of 2020. “It’s my baby’s first Christmas,” she said. “I wanted him to be able to see a Christmas tree.”Although Ms. Craig, 42, lost her job as a counselor for at-risk youth through no fault of her own, she can’t help blaming herself when she sees Christmas decorations and other reminders of a holiday she can barely celebrate. “I don’t even want to think about it because I feel so bad for my kids,” she said. “It makes me feel like such a failure.”For Ms. Craig, and millions of other Americans who lost their jobs because of the coronavirus pandemic, this is a holiday season more to weather than to relish. With unemployment benefits running out and an unforgiving job market offering few berths, this Christmas will be remembered by many for painful sacrifices, not the joy of exchanging gifts and partaking of festive meals with family.The arrival of vaccines and the approval of a new federal relief package offer hope, but they come too late to salvage this year’s celebration — particularly with the prospect that this winter could bring the pandemic’s darkest days.“I’m really afraid of what’s going to happen,” Ms. Craig said.The long delay in achieving a congressional accord on an aid bill has meant fewer gifts under the tree even as the pandemic has separated families and moved what holiday cheer there is this year to video-chat gatherings.And for many families, the $600-a-person stimulus payments approved by Congress are already earmarked for rent and other necessities.In the meantime, unemployed Americans like Monica Scott of Lakeland, Fla., are looking to the past for comfort.“This year the only thing I can do is talk about memories,” said Ms. Scott, who is five months pregnant and had to leave her job at an Amazon warehouse because of the risk of miscarriage from loading and unloading heavy packages. “Last year was awesome — so many toys, clothes and shoes.”Ms. Scott, 34, wants to make a Christmas dinner with her three boys — 14, 10 and 8 years old — but food will be limited because she will be relying on food stamps and lacks a kitchen. Ms. Scott is living in a motel after being evicted last spring from her apartment, but hopes to find a permanent home soon.“It’s just a room with a bathroom,” she said. “The rent is due, and I don’t know where it will come from. I could move in with my sister, but she has her kids, and it’s just not comfortable.”Jessica Hudson, with her children, Emerson and Marleigh, spent the last few weeks scouting beautifully decorated houses for a family drive on Christmas Day.Credit…Sarahbeth Maney for The New York TimesMs. Scott and others will also be turning to food banks to pull together Christmas dinner.“We usually do rib roast, Martinelli’s apple cider, a couple of desserts,” said Jessica Hudson, a full-time student and mother of two from Millbrae, Calif. “We won’t be able to do any of that this year.”Ms. Hudson and her partner, who is unemployed, are doing their best to make Christmas as cheery as they can: They bought stockings and candy from the dollar store, and they have spent the last few weeks scouting local streets for the most beautifully decorated houses, so that they can take their children on a drive to see them on Christmas Day.The Coronavirus Outbreak More

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    Carrier Plant Is Bustling, but Workers Are Wary as Trump Exits

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    AdvertisementContinue reading the main storySupported byContinue reading the main storyCarrier Plant Is Bustling, but Workers Are Wary as Trump ExitsThe president championed an Indiana factory facing a shutdown four years ago. Hundreds of jobs were kept, and overtime abounds. Can the revival last?Less than a month after President Trump’s victory in 2016, he worked out a deal to keep to keep the Carrier plant in Indianapolis open.Credit…Doug Mills/The New York TimesDec. 18, 2020, 5:00 a.m. ETFor the workers fortunate enough to remain employed at Carrier’s Indianapolis factory, which Donald Trump singled out as a symbol of American manufacturing distress in 2016, these should be the best of times. The assembly line is churning out furnaces seven days a week, overtime is abundant, and shares of Carrier are soaring even as Covid-19 ravages the overall economy.But that’s not how Anthony Cushingberry, a 24-year veteran of the factory floor and a union steward, sees it. “The trust left a long time ago,” he said recently after completing a 10-hour shift as a materials associate, taking deliveries of parts and shipping out scrap. “Some of us think they are stockpiling equipment so they can close the factory later.”That’s a worry that has only intensified for workers like Paul Roell, a Trump supporter who fears that after the president leaves office, Carrier management will dust off old plans to move the factory’s 1,050 jobs to Mexico.“Trump is the reason we have our job, and as long as he was in office, we were safe,” Mr. Roell said. “We don’t have the leverage anymore.”That is open to debate, but it’s clear that without Mr. Trump’s intervention even before he took office, the factory would never have become so prominent, if it had survived at all.The furnace-maker’s turn in the spotlight began in February 2016 with a 3-minute-32-second video of a Carrier executive announcing that the factory would be closed, with production shifting to a facility near Monterrey, Mexico. Workers in Indianapolis make more in an hour than their colleagues in Mexico do in a day.“This is strictly a business decision,” the executive told the booing, cursing workers before telling them to quiet down. Mr. Trump soon warned on Twitter that as president he would force Carrier, then part of the conglomerate United Technologies, to reverse its decision.Credit…Lee Klafczynski for The New York Times“The trust left a long time ago.” Anthony CushingberryIt didn’t take that long. Less than a month after his victory, Mr. Trump and Vice President-elect Mike Pence, Indiana’s governor at the time, worked out a deal with the company to keep the factory open. In exchange for $7 million in state tax breaks, Carrier would preserve about 700 blue-collar jobs, while laying off 632 workers.Since then, the 2016 deal itself has become a political Rorschach test. The loss of nearly half the positions, plus the tax incentives that United Technologies received, underscored the limits of Mr. Trump’s powers to save jobs, even as his supporters hailed his role in keeping the plant open at all.The factory has managed to hang on since then and even prosper. But even relatively well-paid blue-collar workers don’t feel secure. The real winnings have gone to Carrier shareholders, whose shares have more than tripled since the company was spun out of United Technologies in April.And now, with Mr. Trump about to leave the White House, the factory is at a turning point. It is operating seven days a week, with mandatory overtime for workers. Carrier has been hiring, adding some 300 workers and bringing the total work force to nearly 1,050.The hiring has helped morale improve since it bottomed out in 2018 with rising absenteeism and machine breakdowns. “I still go in and keep on pushing every day,” said Robin Maynard, who manages 13 to 15 workers as a group leader and is looking forward to retiring in two years.New hires have helped offset absenteeism, Mr. Maynard said, but not all of the newcomers could handle the job and were quickly let go. “They just weren’t factory material,” he said.James Adcock, an official with the United Steelworkers, which represents the Carrier workers, said there was hiring every week. “We’re not quite where we were in 2016,” he said, “but we are working toward that.”And for those who can handle the pace, the Indianapolis plant offers a shot at a solidly middle-class lifestyle, with wages of more than $20 an hour, with time-and-a-half pay on Saturdays and double-time on Sundays.“Financially, it’s good,” Mr. Cushingberry allowed, noting that some workers are making more than $80,000 a year. By contrast, the warehouses and logistics centers that are hiring nearby pay much less, in the range of $15 an hour. But many workers say they can’t handle the pace, however rich the rewards.Business & EconomyLatest UpdatesUpdated Dec. 18, 2020, 7:11 a.m. ETStocks close the week on an uncertain note.Catch up: Coinbase files for initial public offering.Restaurant chains are finding it difficult to navigate differing regulations.“You feel worked to death,” said Rod Smith, a 17-year veteran. “When you work 30 days straight, where is the light at the end of the tunnel?” Despite the recent additions to the work force, Mr. Smith feels Carrier should be hiring more aggressively, rather than working its existing employees so hard.“The company is trying to run it light to cut costs on manpower,” he said. Carrier declined to comment for this article, but the company recently raised its target for annual cost savings to $700 million from $600 million, and the pressure to find new efficiencies is intense.Demand for Carrier’s residential heating and cooling systems rose 46 percent in the third quarter, and the company raised its full-year sales and profit forecast when it reported earnings in late October.Credit…Lee Klafczynski for The New York TimesMr. Roell, a member of the Indiana National Guard, said the days he has to don his uniform and report for Guard duty are a welcome respite from the assembly line. “It’s not a vacation, but there’s more downtime,” he said.Employees were idled for several weeks in the spring after the coronavirus pandemic first struck, but they were soon classified as essential workers and went back to work. One employee died of Covid-19, and Carrier has adjusted production lines to create more space between employees while requiring masks and checking temperatures as people arrive for the day.To thank them for working through the pandemic in the spring, the company gave a party in a tent in June “with a chicken lunch and a pack of Life Savers as thanks,” Mr. Roell recalled, while other local employers gave bonuses and raises.At the same time, Carrier has made an unlikely emergence as a stock-market darling. Long a dull if steady performer overshadowed by the military business within United Technologies, it was spun out as an independent company in early April.The timing couldn’t have been worse — it was the depth of the recession caused by the coronavirus outbreak — and Carrier’s shares made their debut at $12. But a booming housing market, driven by low interest rates, has powered demand for new heating and air conditioning systems, said Deane M. Dray, an analyst with RBC Capital Markets.So has a desire by Americans suddenly stuck at home to upgrade their ventilation systems, Mr. Dray said. Demand for Carrier’s residential heating and cooling systems rose 46 percent in the third quarter, and the company raised its full-year sales and profit forecast when it reported earnings in late October.“There’s a silver lining to working from home — it means work on the home,” Mr. Dray said. Carrier now trades around $38 a share, and Mr. Dray sees a further opportunity for the company as the new Covid vaccines are rolled out.The two leading vaccines need to be refrigerated well below freezing, which could drive demand for cooling systems worldwide. That, plus Carrier’s new freedom to maneuver as an independent company, bodes well for shareholders.“At United Technologies, Carrier was not a priority for growth capital,” Mr. Dray said. “They are finally in control of their own destiny.”The same cannot be said of workers like Mr. Smith, Mr. Roell or Mr. Cushingberry. And while the saga of Carrier’s Indianapolis factory is well known in political circles, it hasn’t even come up on earnings calls or otherwise registered for the analysts who cover Carrier on Wall Street. “This is below the radar screen for us,” Mr. Dray said.Credit…Lee Klafczynski for The New York Times“Trump is the reason we have our job, and as long as he was in office, we were safe.”Paul Roell Carrier workers who held United Technologies shares in their retirement accounts received stock as part of the offering, but didn’t receive shares outright or otherwise take part in the spinoff. Carrier’s chief executive, David Gitlin, owns more than 200,000 shares, worth nearly $8 million.“It’s once in a lifetime, but it was a missed opportunity,” said Corey Austin, a Carrier employee who has worked on the assembly line for 17 years. But Mr. Austin, who earns $23.87 an hour, has no illusions about how lucky he is to still be employed at Carrier.His father and mother spent decades as assembly workers and United Steelworkers members at Diamond Chain, a factory in downtown Indianapolis that announced this year that it would close after operating for more than a century.Negotiations on a new contract at Carrier begin next year, and Mr. Austin hopes to see a raise when the new contract goes into effect. “Employees didn’t even know the spinoff was happening,” he said. “And a lot of employees don’t trust what management tells them. People are just in the mind-set of working every day.”In the past, new contracts have typically increased salaries by 50 cents an hour each year over three years.With or without Mr. Trump in office, Mr. Roell has no plans to look for a job anywhere else, despite his anxiety about the factory’s long-term prospects. In the meantime, he doesn’t foresee a break until Christmas Eve, and the last full day he was able to spend with his family was on Thanksgiving weekend.But with a salary of $25.96 an hour — and two children to put through college — the long hours and constant uncertainty are worth it. “It’s a pretty big worry,” he said. “I just turned 40, and I’m going to keep working there. Hopefully, they will stick around.”AdvertisementContinue reading the main story More

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    Unemployment Claims Show Impact of Layoffs as Virus Surges

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    AdvertisementContinue reading the main storySupported byContinue reading the main storyUnemployment Claims Show Impact of Layoffs as Virus Surges“It’s going to be a challenging few months,” one economist says. A new pandemic relief bill from Congress could soften the blow.Vacant retail shops in Columbus, Ohio. The rate of jobless claims has been rising as coronavirus cases remain high across the country.Credit…Maddie McGarvey for The New York TimesDec. 17, 2020, 6:25 p.m. ETThe surge in coronavirus cases is rippling through the economy, forcing employers to lay off workers at an extraordinarily high rate even as new vaccines and the possibility of more federal aid offer hope for next year.The number of Americans filing initial claims for unemployment insurance remained elevated last week, the Labor Department reported Thursday. After dropping earlier in the fall, claims have moved higher, dwarfing the pace of past recessions.Consumer caution, coupled with new restrictions on business activity like indoor dining, has pummeled the hospitality industry, lodging, airlines and other service businesses. The debut of a coronavirus vaccine offers the prospect of relief, but until mass inoculations begin next year, the economy will remain under pressure.“Businesses are closing, and as a result, we are seeing job losses mount — and that’s exactly what we were fearful of going into the winter,” said Rubeela Farooqi, chief U.S. economist at High Frequency Economics. “It’s going to be a challenging few months, no doubt.”Already, the pace of retail sales has dipped, as has the rate of overall economic growth. Few expect coronavirus cases to ease this winter, further holding back economic activity, but progress on a new aid bill on Capitol Hill could soften the blow.Last week brought 935,000 new claims for state benefits, compared with 956,000 the previous week. Adjusted for seasonal variations, last week’s figure was 885,000, an increase of 23,000.There were 455,000 new claims for Pandemic Unemployment Assistance, a federally funded program for part-time workers, the self-employed and others ordinarily ineligible for jobless benefits. That total, which was not seasonally adjusted, was up 40,000 from the week before.The move to limit business and consumer activity by government authorities was evident in the new data. In Illinois, which banned indoor dining on Nov. 20, claims rose by over 35,000. In California, where restrictions went into effect on Dec. 3, new filings jumped by nearly 24,000.At the end of November, more than 20 million workers were collecting unemployment benefits under state or federal programs, Labor Department data indicates. Although the unemployment rate fell to 6.7 percent in November from a high of 14.7 percent in April, the persistent layoffs highlight the economic fragility of many Americans.Business & EconomyLatest UpdatesUpdated Dec. 17, 2020, 4:35 p.m. ETThe Washington Post has 3 million digital subscribers.Coinbase, a top cryptocurrency company, files for initial public offering.Amazon wrongfully fired a worker in retaliation for organizing, a labor agency says.“We are not moving in the right direction,” said Gregory Daco, chief U.S. economist at Oxford Economics. “With the looming expiration of benefits, it’s even more worrisome.”The pain in the labor market is particularly acute for less-skilled workers, whose jobs and finances have been hit much harder than those of more affluent Americans.The S&P 500, the Dow Jones industrials and the Nasdaq composite index closed at record highs Thursday, capping a strong rally in recent weeks. Initial public offerings have been white-hot, minting thousands of paper millionaires in Silicon Valley and elsewhere.The housing market, too, has been robust, propelled by low interest rates that make mortgages more affordable as city dwellers escape to the suburbs.Total wages and salaries have bounced back to where they before the pandemic, at $9.6 trillion a month, after dipping below $8.7 trillion at the depths of the recession in the spring. But the proportion of Americans in the labor force remains well below where it was a year ago, underscoring the deep hole the economy is slowly working its way out of.Republican and Democratic leaders in Congress continued talks on Thursday on another pandemic relief bill, something that economists have warned is overdue. Without action, two key programs for unemployed workers — Pandemic Unemployment Assistance and Pandemic Emergency Unemployment Compensation, which provides extra weeks of aid after state benefits end — will expire this month, cutting off payments to millions.In addition to extending those programs, the $900 billion package is expected to include stimulus payments of $600 to individuals, a $300 weekly supplement to unemployment benefits, and rental and food assistance. The $2.2 trillion CARES Act, approved in March, has been credited with helping the economy survive the depths of the lockdown in many parts of the country last spring. But partisan battles in Washington have held up renewed federal assistance for months.Economists have warned that without a new aid package from Washington, economic growth could be flat in the first quarter of 2021. What’s more, the abrupt end of unemployment benefits for millions could put a further crimp in consumer spending.Data released on Wednesday showed a 1.1 percent drop in retail sales in November, a disappointing start to the crucial holiday season. Gus Faucher, chief economist at PNC Financial Services, expects economic growth to be weak for the next few months before picking up later in 2021.“Until we get a lot of people vaccinated, the economy will face a difficult test,” he said. “I don’t know if we will see an outright contraction or the loss of jobs, but the pace of improvement will slow markedly.”AdvertisementContinue reading the main story More

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    2020: The Year in Sports When Everybody Lost

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    They don’t do that this year, not in the age of the coronavirus. Lambeau is absent of fans, and the bars and party houses are mostly empty. So are the restaurants and sausage stands at Miller Park in Milwaukee, home to the Brewers, and the seats at Fiserv Forum, where the Bucks play.

    The sports economy has been ravaged by the pandemic. The absence of live fans alone has forced the thousands of people who once put on games at these venues out of work.

    In Wisconsin, ticket agents and hot dog vendors and bartenders and janitors lost their livelihoods this year. More

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    States Overpaid Unemployment Benefits and Want Money Back

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    AdvertisementContinue reading the main storySupported byContinue reading the main storyJobless Benefits Saved Them, Until States Wanted the Money BackA pandemic relief program allows no forgiveness of overpayments, even when recipients are not at fault and the funds are already spent.William and Diana Villafana were told they had received more than $7,000 in excess unemployment benefits. To collect the debt, Nevada is taking all of his benefits and paying her $73 a week.Credit…Bridget Bennett for The New York TimesDec. 11, 2020, 5:00 a.m. ETUnemployment payments that looked like a lifeline may now, for many, become their ruin.Pandemic Unemployment Assistance, a federal program that covers gig workers, part-time hires, seasonal workers and others who do not qualify for traditional unemployment benefits, has kept millions afloat. The program, established by Congress in March as part of the CARES Act, has provided over $70 billion in relief.But in carrying out the hastily conceived program, states have overpaid hundreds of thousands of workers — often because of administrative errors. Now states are asking for that money back.The notices come out of the blue, with instructions to repay thousands or even tens of thousands of dollars. Those being billed, already living on the edge, are told that their benefits will be reduced to compensate for the errors — or that the state may even put a lien on their home, come after future wages or withhold tax refunds.Many who collected payments are still out of a job, and may have little prospect of getting one. Most had no idea that they were being overpaid.“When somebody gets a bill like this, it completely terrifies them,” said Michele Evermore, a senior policy analyst for the National Employment Law Project, a nonprofit workers’ rights group. Sometimes the letters themselves are in error — citing overpayments when benefits were correctly paid — but either way, she said, the stress “is going to cost people’s lives.”The hastily conceived Pandemic Unemployment Assistance program has presented other troubles, including widespread fraud schemes and challenges with processing. As a result, states only recently had enough resources to start sending out overpayment notices. In the meantime, people have been collecting — and spending — sometimes thousands of dollars in what they understood to be legitimate benefits.Olive Stewart, a 56-year-old immigrant from Jamaica, worked part time as a sous-chef at a cafeteria at a Jewish school in Philadelphia, earning $16 an hour for roughly 25 hours a week. But when the pandemic hit and schools shut down, she was laid off.Ms. Stewart applied for Pandemic Unemployment Assistance and began receiving $234 a week. It was not quite enough to cover the $650 in rent, $200 electric bill and $200 internet bill for the house she shares with her 12-year-old daughter, her retired mother and her sister, who has a disability that prevents her from working. To make ends meet, Ms. Stewart started dipping into her savings.Then, on Oct. 6, she got a notice saying that Pennsylvania’s unemployment insurance vendor, Geographic Solutions, had overpaid her by accident. The overpayment included funds from Pandemic Unemployment Assistance and from a $600 federal supplement to unemployment insurance. In total, she was told, she would have to pay back nearly $8,000.To collect the debt, the state began to withhold more than half of her unemployment payments, leaving her just $105 a week. In early November, the state began taking all of her unemployment benefits, leaving her with no income. She has yet to pay her December rent.“The state should be paying attention to what they are sending out,” Ms. Stewart said. “It was their mistake, and I’ve already spent all the money on food and rent. How am I going to pay it back?”Geographic Solutions made duplicate payments for 30,000 Pennsylvania claims because of a system problem, a $280 million mistake, the State Department of Labor and Industry said. (The company says the problem arose from a one-day error that was immediately reported.) Overpayments can also occur if an applicant makes a mistake on a form, as ProPublica reported, or if a state determines that a recipient should not have been eligible.As of Sept. 30, about 27 percent of those approved for Pandemic Unemployment Assistance in Ohio had been overpaid, about 162,000 claims. In mid-November, the figure in Colorado was about 29,000; in Texas, it was over 41,000.Many states waive overpayments on regular unemployment insurance when no fraud is involved, or when paying the money back would cause someone significant hardship. But the federal rules for Pandemic Unemployment Assistance prohibit forgiveness. Even if the state is at fault, the recipient is on the hook.States often start collecting the overpayment automatically, by withholding a portion — from 30 to 100 percent — of future unemployment benefit payments.Many overpayments arose because state unemployment systems are designed to calculate benefits using W-2 forms, employer records, pay stubs and other documents associated with traditional jobs. But because gig workers and part-timers had different sorts of documentation, states had to adapt quickly to a new method of processing and approving claims.Mistakes in the rollout were inevitable, said Behnaz Mansouri, a senior attorney for the Unemployment Law Project, a nonprofit legal aid organization in Seattle.Business & EconomyLatest UpdatesUpdated Dec. 10, 2020, 4:09 p.m. ETWalmart is preparing to administer a coronavirus vaccine once it is available.Mastercard and Visa stop allowing their cards to be used on Pornhub.The U.S. budget deficit hit $207 billion in November.“For a new system to have such a punitive response when the system itself fails seems overly harsh and draconian,” Ms. Mansouri said.“I don’t think they understand that unemployment benefits are for survival,” Mr. Villafana said. “Or if they do understand it, they don’t care.”Credit…Bridget Bennett for The New York TimesGina Jones, 29, was furloughed in March from her part-time job at a breakfast bar at a Quality Inn in Spokane, Wash., and began receiving $750 a week from the pandemic program, which allowed her to pay for rent, food and necessities for her two daughters, ages 1 and 5. She was called back to work in July, and now works about 28 hours a week at $13.50 an hour.Then, in mid-November, she checked her unemployment portal online and saw a message that she had been overpaid by nearly $12,500. She fears that the state will start garnishing her wages to collect the debt.“I already used that money to support my family,” Ms. Jones said. “It’s all gone, and I can’t afford to pay it back.”Asking people to pay back unemployment funds can undermine the unemployment system’s goal of stabilizing the economy, said Philip Spesshardt, branch manager for benefits services at the Colorado Division of Unemployment Insurance.If a person’s unemployment checks are reduced each week because of an overpayment, the recipient will have less cash to pay bills and patronize local businesses. “Ultimately that has a cascading effect on many of those small businesses, causing them to close permanently and further adding to the unemployment rate,” Mr. Spesshardt said.While overpayments under the federal program cannot be waived, applicants can appeal demands for reimbursement after the notice is issued. But the time allowed for appeal can be as little as seven days. After that, the process can be slow, confusing and cumbersome.Colorado has taken steps to address the hardships of reimbursement. In October, after the state noted the large number of overpayments, it determined that the application form was confusing because it did not specify whether the person filing was supposed to provide gross or net income. It decided to “write off” cases where the recipients had submitted earnings and tax documentation that would have allowed the correct benefit to be calculated.Asked how the policy squared with the federal prohibition against forgiveness, a spokeswoman for the Colorado Department of Labor and Employment cited “the administrative burden that it would create for us to collect on these overpayments given competing priorities.”House Democrats have called for renewed pandemic relief to include a provision allowing states to waive overpayments when workers cannot repay them without severe hardship. The provision would apply to previous and future cases. A separate House bill, with bipartisan sponsorship, provides for forgiveness if the overpayment was not the recipient’s fault and “such repayment would be contrary to equity and good conscience.”But the possibility of a remedy is not much consolation to those wondering how they will pay rent and put food on the table in the meantime.William and Diana Villafana, 55 and 34, who before the pandemic ran a car rental business in Henderson, Nev., were told in late October that between them, they had been overpaid by more than $7,000. To cover that debt, the state is taking all of Mr. Villafana’s benefits, and giving Ms. Villafana $73 a week. They are using credit cards for their $2,000 monthly rent, as well as utilities, food and other necessities.“I don’t think they understand that unemployment benefits are for survival,” Mr. Villafana said. “Or if they do understand it, they don’t care.”Mr. Villafana worries about how he will continue to provide for their son and daughter, ages 6 and 7. When his daughter recently asked for a paintbrush set and an easel, he didn’t know what to tell her.“It’s kind of hard to explain to them, ‘Look, you can’t do this’ or ‘I can’t buy you that,’” he said. “I have no idea what we’re going to do about Christmas.”Sheelagh McNeill contributed research.AdvertisementContinue reading the main story More

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    Airbnb Tops $100 Billion on First Day of Trading

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    AdvertisementContinue reading the main storySupported byContinue reading the main storyAirbnb Tops $100 Billion on First Day of Trading, Reviving Talk of a BubbleThe home-rental company’s blockbuster I.P.O. followed that of the delivery company DoorDash. Investors piled into both.Brian Chesky, Airbnb’s chief executive, on Nasdaq’s digital billboard in Times Square on Thursday.Credit…Hiroko Masuike/The New York TimesDec. 10, 2020SAN FRANCISCO — Over the last decade, Airbnb has upended the travel industry, riled regulators, frustrated local communities and created a mini-economy of short-term rental operators, all while spinning a warm narrative of belonging and connection.On Thursday, Airbnb sold investors on an even unlikelier story: that it is a pandemic winner.The company’s shares skyrocketed on their first day of trading, rising 113 percent above the initial public offering price of $68 to close at $144.71. That put Airbnb’s market capitalization at $100.7 billion — the largest in its generation of “unicorn” companies and more than Expedia Group and Marriott International combined.Airbnb’s offering raised $3.5 billion, making it the biggest I.P.O. this year. More