A Paycheck Guarantee is Popular with Voters
By Darrick Hamilton
In the last three months, 45 million workers have filed for unemployment insurance — and more workers are unemployed today at any time since the Great Depression. After months of mass layoffs, more than half of Black adults are unemployed. And as new coronavirus cases spike across the country, 19 states are reversing or pausing their re-opening plans, which will trigger new waves of lost jobs. This recession, caused by a pandemic that’s killing Black people at more than twice the rate that it’s killing White people, won’t end without bold government action — and if we do nothing, Black workers will be hurt the most.
A paycheck guarantee could change that. Representative Pramila Jayapal recently introduced the Paycheck Recovery Act, a new proposal for a simple new federal program that would directly cover up 100 percent of workers’ paychecks throughout the coronavirus crisis. The proposal would cover up to $90,000 per worker, and cover every single person working at a business facing a significant revenue loss. Senators Mark Warner, Bernie Sanders, Doug Jones, and Richard Blumenthal introduced similar legislation in the Senate. Both bills would also apply retrospectively to people who have lost their jobs during the pandemic — who could be added back to their former employers’ payrolls, even while the government covers workers’ paychecks while they must stay safe and socially distanced at home.
Paycheck guarantees are working abroad, and they can work here too. Germany, Denmark, and Canada have all put similar programs in place, and stopped the mass unemployment that we’re seeing in the United States. The International Monetary Fund predicts that Germany’s unemployment rate will peak at just 3.9% this year. By contrast, the U.S. unemployment rate is already three times higher, and likely to get worse.
Black workers always suffer most in a recession and this is no exception. During recessions, corporations treat Black workers as the “first fired, last hired” — as the economy recovers, the Black unemployment rate falls more slowly. Years after the Great Recession, Black workers were disproportionately likely to become long-term unemployed, making it harder for them to find jobs and depressing their wages in the future. We’re already seeing the seeds of this pattern: as white unemployment rates started to temporarily decline this month, the Black unemployment rate continued to rise. A paycheck guarantee would Black workers from being displaced, allow millions of workers to return to get their jobs back, and help facilitate a safe recovery.
The pandemic’s impacts reflect a long history of structural racism. A paycheck guarantee would also help ensure Black workers have a stable source of income as waves of the virus force states and cities to shut back down. In March, Congress passed critical (but temporary) improvements to unemployment insurance, including by providing workers who lose their job during the pandemic an extra $600 per week in benefits. Expanded unemployment insurance benefits have made it possible for workers to make ends meet during the pandemic — but workers face huge obstacles, from crashing websites, long lines, and language barriers, to accessing these UI benefits. This Spring, less than half of unemployed workers were able to get unemployment insurance payments, and Black workers were even less likely. The Paycheck Recovery Act would remove these barriers, and guarantee workers stable incomes and health care benefits — as opposed to our current reality, in which 27 million Americans have lost their employer-based health insurance along with their jobs. And by keeping the economy stable, a paycheck guarantee would ease the pressure on states and cities to rush to reopen.
As part of a June 2020 survey, Data for Progress, in partnership with the Justice Collaborative Institute, tested voters attitudes about the Paycheck Recovery Act — and found overwhelming support from registered voters. Strong majorities of Democrats, Independents, and Republicans support the proposal, as do strong majorities of Black, Latinx, and white voters. The proposal gathered support from both men and women, voters who’ve attended college and those who didn’t, and voters under 45 and older.
The first proposal Data for Progress polled was a proposal for the federal government to step in and directly cover workers’ paychecks during the coronavirus 19 crisis — just like the government has done in Denmark and Germany. Specifically, DFP asked voters the following question:
Do you support or oppose the government stepping in to guarantee workers’ paychecks during the coronavirus (COVID-19) crisis, saving jobs and putting millions of people back to work?
DFP found overwhelming, bipartisan, and multiracial support for this paycheck guarantee proposal. Overall, voters support it by a staggering 59-point margin (75 percent support, 16 percent oppose). Support is broadly consistent regardless of gender, race, or age. Voters 45-years-and-up were slightly more likely to support the proposal (76 percent support) than younger voters (72 percent support).
The second proposal Data for Progress polled was a proposal to extend the Paycheck Guarantee to workers who’ve been laid off during the coronavirus pandemic. Both the House Paycheck Recovery Act and the Senate Paycheck Security Act include provisions that would cover wages for workers who were laid off since the start of the pandemic — allowing them to re-connect to their old job and receive a guaranteed paycheck while safely sheltering in place at home. This would allow workers to maintain a steady income if they were called back to work, then required to stay home again as states reverse their re-opening plans. Specifically, DFP asked voters:
Do you support or oppose the government stepping in to cover workers' paychecks at businesses with significant coronavirus (COVID-19) related revenue losses, so that businesses can rehire laid-off workers — provided that no one would be required to come into work until it was safe?
DFP also found even more support for this proposal. Overall, voters support it by a 60-point margin (75 percent of voters support, 15 percent oppose). Again, support was largely steady across race, age, and education levels. Black voters are slightly more supportive of the proposal (77 percent support) than white voters (75 percent support). The proposal has the strongest support from Democrats (79 percent support), but still garners overwhelming majorities from Independents (73 percent support) and Republicans (69 percent support).
A previous Data for Progress poll on an early version of this proposal also found strong support across rural, suburban, and urban areas. All across our nation, voters want the Paycheck Recovery Act to guarantee workers a steady paycheck while we endure this coronavirus crisis.
Darrick Hamilton is a Professor and Executive Director at the Kirwan Institute for the Study of Race and Ethnicity at The Ohio State University.