谢里·约翰逊知道在当前形势下绝望是什么感觉流行病她不想让任何人有同样的感觉。
“不要让美国人民绝望。亚利桑那州尤马市一家餐馆的下岗总经理约翰逊在被问及她需要从国会得到什么时表示:“不要因为别无选择，就把人们逼到开始发生可怕事情的角落里。”下一轮刺激措施。
不幸的是，约翰逊，一个完全依赖每周600美元额外收入的单身母亲失业津贴在过去的三个月里，为了维持家庭的运转，她从《关心法案》中吸取了经验。
她21岁的女儿苏珊是一名女服务员，最近她回到了一家餐馆工作，开了一家餐馆，试着帮她妈妈付一些账单。
她很快就感染了冠状病毒，已经在医院住了四周了。约翰逊和她16岁的小女儿不能去看她。
“出于需要，我女儿回去工作了。看看发生了什么?如果她能回家，我就很幸运了。”
“我不知道怎么会有人不明白。这笔额外的钱，在这个时候，改变了生活。这就是一切，”她说。“这不是不想工作。这是为了生存。”
苏珊，21岁，右，在感染冠状病毒后已经在医院住了四周，她的母亲说。她回来当服务员后不久就得到了它。她的妹妹萨拉今年16岁。他们的母亲谢里·约翰逊(Sheri Johnson)是一名餐厅经理，20年来，她一直支持着他们三个孩子的家庭。
即使失业率上升，约翰逊自失业以来一直试图削减开支。她过去一年挣5万多美元，这远远超过了她失业后每周800美元的收入，即使有所增长。没有它，她将从亚利桑那州获得大约200美元的失业救济——这远远不够支付她每月950美元的房租，即使她没有花一分钱在电话费、汽车保险或电费上。
这是美国人面临的成本，因为3月份实施的失业刺激计划阻止了过去三个月的严重失业停止。
大约3000万美国人将在本周末后失去他们的每周600美元支票。劳工部说，到周日，所有的州都将发出他们最后的支票，因为国会没有在最后一刻达成延长失业增加的协议，这是不可预料的。
在此期间，参议院多数党领袖米奇·麦康奈尔(Mitch McConnell)周四表示，共和党人支持“对失业保险进行一些临时的联邦补贴，同时解决明显的疯狂现象，即向人们支付更高的工资以避免失业。”但是还不清楚这种补充剂会是什么样子，也不清楚它能多快被编入失业系统，因为每个州都不一样。
这不是不想工作。这是为了生存。
作为《关爱法案》的一部分，国会最初在3月下旬通过了为所有失业的美国人每周增加600美元的法案。它的发展是为了让那些因为冠状病毒的抑制效应而失业的美国人能够继续获得几乎所有他们以前挣得的工资，而正常的失业是做不到的。
但是，随着失业刺激政策到期，数千万美国人每月的收入赤字将达到2400美元，国会——尤其是参议院共和党人——面临着寻找替代者的问题。
到目前为止，他们已经提出了一个失业保险的版本，它将取代工资的70%，而不是40%，这是全国范围内正常失业的平均水平。
2020年7月22日，华盛顿，抗议者手持标语牌，用平板卡车上的现场乐队暂时封锁通往参议院多数党领袖米奇·麦康奈尔(Mitch McConnell)家的街道，要求延长与COVID-19相关的失业援助。
厄尼·泰德斯基，曾经为巴拉克·奥巴马的财政部工作的经济学家估计的对于大多数失业的美国人来说，这相当于每周175到200美元，与600美元相比，这是一个巨大的损失。
这个想法已经引起了关注它的经济学家的批评和焦虑需要长达九周的时间各州重新规划他们的失业系统，仅仅是为了给美国人一个600美元的统一税率，这在后勤上是一个更容易的选择。
根据国家就业法项目的高级政策分析师米歇尔·埃弗莫尔的说法，重新编程已经非常陈旧和缓慢的国家失业系统将会更加困难，甚至包括取消600美元计划的时间延迟。
根据实施当前失业制度的漫长、激烈的过程，很容易确定哪个地区的情况会更糟。
根据该机构的数据，在3月份，大多数给不到15%的人提供福利的州都在南方，而大多数成功给40%的人提供福利的州都在东北和中西部皮尤研究中心。
共和党人认为，补充70%工资的想法是为了保持一种形式的高失业率，但不要通过失业向人们支付超过他们从工作中获得的工资。
然而，数据显示，600美元并没有抑制人们重返工作岗位，让工人在失业率上升的情况下维持生计一直是他们和整个经济的生命线。
根据泰德斯基，例如，6月份重返工作岗位的失业保险领取者中，近70%的人在失业上赚的钱比他们以前的工资还多，但他们仍然回到了工作岗位。
2020年7月13日，亚利桑那州图森市，医护人员穿着个人防护装备在里约健康中心的19号免下车测试点进行测试。
其他人则认为失业工人比职位空缺多，正如高级经济学家海蒂·希尔霍尔兹所说书写在经济政策研究所的一篇博文中，或者人们不回去工作是因为这对他们或他们的家庭不安全。
“削减600美元不能激励他们去找工作;它只会引起疼痛。”
像约翰逊这样的人，前餐厅总经理，曾试图找工作，并且沮丧地证明了就业市场的不可行性。
“我干这行已经20年了，现在我没有办法挣钱了。”这是我训练中唯一有资格做的事情。”
与此同时，约翰逊说，被视为试图逃避工作的人令人恼火。
“这让我很生气，也很沮丧。你知道，我努力工作，一周50，60，70个小时。我赚了钱，”她说。
但是在美国的其他地方，有些小企业主的故事反映了共和党对可用员工短缺的担忧，他们已经被国家最高领导人考虑在内。
参议院小企业委员会共和党主席、佛罗里达州参议员马尔科·卢比奥在一份声明中承认:“大多数失业人员都想找工作，但目前还找不到。”自录音再现装置发出的高音。“但许多雇主表示，600美元的失业救济金附加福利让一些人无法重返工作岗位。”
他补充说:“我们需要一个新的结构，帮助那些还没有找到工作的人，但不要阻止任何人重返工作岗位。”
托德·苏尔德斯(Todd Surdez)是达科他州两家餐馆的老板，也是这些雇主之一。随着冠状病毒在全国蔓延，他自愿关闭了位于南达科他州皮埃尔堡的家庭餐厅“银马刺”。当他感觉准备得更充分时，他在五月重新开业，但是他的两个雇员决定不回来了。从那以后，他一直试图雇佣三四名新员工，但都没有成功。
苏尔德斯在接受美国广播公司的电话采访时说:“一个特殊类型的人需要在仲夏进入一个炎热的厨房，为人们准备食物。”“无论如何，这些都是很难填补的工作。现在我们每周增加600美元...这相当于每周工作40小时每小时挣25美元。食品行业负担不起。我们无法与联邦政府目前支付的价格相比。”
苏尔德斯说，他理解有数百万人在没有工作的情况下挣扎，但他认为失业的额外增加应该与生活成本挂钩，而不是每个人都有固定的失业率。
但是专家说，在经济何时会反弹还不确定的时候削减失业率仍然是非常危险的，而且风险最有可能由收入最低的工人承担，他们通常是美国黑人和棕色人种。
据英国《金融时报》报道，从2月到6月，超过一半的失业都发生在美国收入最低的行业预算和政策优先中心，而且员工大多是少数民族。
预算和政策优先中心表示:“黑人、拉美裔和移民工人更有可能在低薪行业工作，这些行业的失业人数远高于高薪行业。”书写在7月的一份报告中。
Nearing the end of $600 unemployment lifeline, an Arizona woman risked coronavirus to help pay bills
Sheri Johnson knows what it's like to be desperate during the currentpandemic, and she doesn't want anyone else to feel the same.
"Don't make the American people desperate. Don't force people's back into a corner to where terrible things start happening because they're not being left any other choice," said Johnson, a laid-off general manager of a restaurant in Yuma, Arizona, when she was asked what she needs from Congress'next round of stimulus efforts.
Unfortunately, Johnson, a single mother who relied entirely on the extra $600 per week ofunemployment benefitsfrom the CARES Act to keep her family afloat over the last three months, was speaking from experience.
Her 21-year-old daughter Susan, a waitress, recently returned to work at a restaurant, opened at partial capacity, to try and help her mother pay off some bills.
She caught coronavirus soon after and has been in the hospital for four weeks. Johnson and her younger daughter, who is 16, can't visit her.
"My daughter went back to work out of necessity. And look what happened. I'll be lucky if she comes home," Johnson said.
"I don't know how anybody can not understand. That extra money, at this point in time, it's life changing. It's everything," she said. "This isn't about not wanting to work. It's about wanting to survive."
Even with the unemployment boost, Johnson has been trying to cut back on spending ever since she lost her job. She used to make over $50,000 a year, which was well over the $800 per week she got from unemployment, even with the boost. Without it, she'll get around $200 of unemployment from the state of Arizona -- not nearly enough to pay her rent of $950 a month, even if she didn't spend a dime of it on phone bills, her car insurance or electricity.
This is the cost Americans face as an unemployment boost implemented in March to staunch the intense job loss of the last three monthscomes to a halt.
Some 30 million Americans are poised to lose their weekly $600 check after this weekend. By Sunday, all states will have sent out their last checks, the Labor Department said, absent a last-minute deal by Congress to extend the unemployment boost, which is not expected.
In the interim, Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell said Thursday that Republicans back "some temporary federal supplement to unemployment insurance while fixing the obvious craziness of paying people more to remain out of the workforce." But it's not clear what that supplement would look like or how quickly it could be programmed into unemployment systems, which are different in every state.
This isn't about not wanting to work. It's about wanting to survive.
Congress initially passed the $600-per-week boost for all unemployed Americans in late March, as part of the CARES Act. It was developed so that Americans who lost their job because of the halting effect of coronavirus could continue to bring in nearly all of the wages they were previously earning, which regular unemployment, as it was, wouldn't do.
But as the unemployment boost expires, leaving tens of millions of Americans with an income deficit of $2,400 a month, Congress -- specifically Senate Republicans -- is faced with finding a replacement.
So far, they've suggested a version of unemployment insurance that would replace wages by 70%, instead of 40%, which is the nationwide average for regular unemployment.
Ernie Tedeschi, an economist at Evercore who formerly worked for Barack Obama's Treasury Department, hasestimatedthat would equate to around $175 to 200 a week for most unemployed Americans -- a massive loss compared to $600.
The idea has already prompted criticism and anxiety from economists who watched ittake up to nine weeksfor states to reprogram their unemployment systems just to give Americans a flat rate of $600 -- a logistically easier option -- back in March.
To reprogram state unemployment systems, which are vastly antiquated and slow, would be harder and even include a time lapse for unprogramming the $600, according to Michele Evermore, a senior policy analyst with the National Employment Law Project.
And it's easy to pinpoint which regions will be worse off, based on the long, tooth-and-nail process that played out for months to implement the current unemployment system.
In the month of March, most of the states that had given benefits to less than 15% of people were in the South, while most of the states that had successfully given benefits to 40% of people were in the Northeast and the Midwest, according to thePew Research Center.
The idea for supplementing 70% of wages, Republicans argue, is to keep a form of boosted unemployment, but not pay people more through unemployment than they would earn from a job.
Data suggests the $600 hasn't disincentivized people from returning to work, however, and that keeping workers afloat with the unemployment boost has been a lifeline for them and the economy as a whole.
According toTedeschi,for example, almost 70% of the unemployment insurance recipients who returned to work in June were making more on unemployment than their prior wage -- yet still went back to their jobs.
Others argue that there are more unemployed workers than job openings, as senior economist Heidi Shierholzwrotein a blog post for the Economic Policy Institute, or that people aren't returning to work because it's not safe for them or their families.
"Cutting off the $600 cannot incentivize them to get jobs; it will just cause pain," Shierholz wrote.
People like Johnson, the former restaurant general manager, have tried to get jobs, and attest -- with frustration -- to the impossibilities of the job market.
"I've been doing this for 20 years and now I have no way of earning an income. And that's the only thing I'm training qualified to do," Johnson said.
Meanwhile, to be seen as someone who is trying to avoid work is infuriating, Johnson said.
"It makes me so angry and so frustrated. You know, I worked hard, 50, 60, 70 hours a week. And I made money," she said.
But in other parts of the country, there are small business owners with stories that reflect the Republican concerns over a shortage of available employees, and they've been taken into consideration by the nation's top leaders.
"Most people receiving unemployment want a job but can't find one yet," Florida Sen. Marco Rubio, Republican chair of the Senate Small Business Committee, acknowledged in atweet. "But many employers say $600 unemployment benefit add-on keeps some from going back to work."
He added, "We need a new structure that helps those who can't find work yet, but doesn't discourage anyone from returning to work."
Todd Surdez, an owner of two restaurants in the Dakotas, is one of those employers. He closed his family dining establishment, The Silver Spur, in Fort Pierre, South Dakota, on his own volition as the coronavirus spread across the nation. He reopened in May when he felt better prepared, but two of his employees decided not to return. He's been trying unsuccessfully to hire three or four new employees ever since.
"It takes a special type of person to want to get into a hot kitchen in the middle of the summer and prepare food for people," Surdez told ABC News in a phone interview. "Those are kind of difficult jobs to fill anyway. And now that we have this additional $600 a week ... that's equivalent to making over $25 an hour based on 40 hours a week. Well, the food industry can't afford that. We can't match what the federal government's paying right now."
Surdez said he understands there are millions of people struggling without work, but he thinks the extra boost to unemployment should be tied to cost of living rather than a flat rate for everyone.
But cutting unemployment at a time when there's no telling when the economy will bounce back is still exceedingly dangerous, experts say, and the risk is most likely to be incurred by the lowest-paid workers, who are typically Black and brown Americans.
More than half of the jobs lost from February to June have been in the nation's lowest-paying industries, according to theCenter on Budget and Policy Priorities, and the employees are largely minorities.
"Black, Latino, and immigrant workers are likelier to work in industries paying low wages, where job losses have been far larger than in higher-paid industries," the Center on Budget and Policy Prioritieswrotein a July report.
