The pandemic revolves around money. It is the motive for many of those who are risking their lives going to work. It is also the motive for many of those who are insisting on opening up the country again. This pandemic proved how unorganized and careless the government is for the working class. Even though America is run by the working-class people, they’re not the priority of the government. People are still having to pay rent, utility bills, and insurance even though, the government talked about freezing rent and bills until people start going back to work. Some companies like Spectrum were generous enough to extend their deadline until June for customers to start paying what they owe. GEICO was also generous to freeze the bills until June, but they are taking advantage of charging interest. Also, it may be that the government has more control over New York City Public Housing than it does over private housing; Yet tenants are obligated to pay monthly rent, otherwise they risk evacuation because rent has not been frozen. Unless they can submit some paper proof of them not having a current source of income, the rent obligation continues.
The government has provided people with financial relief to help families who are not getting paid to work from home. While the government seems to be assisting everyone, it is casting out some [people] from the relief plans. Such as college students and undocumented immigrants. So, if you are a full-time college student(eighteen years or older) who is claimed by their parents on their 2018 taxes, you will not be receiving financial help.
The CARES Act provides some assistance to college graduates who are paying off their student loans. Other than that, college students are supposed to depend on the financial aid refunds that have not been used since the pandemic started. But even those refunds have just started coming in this week and will take time to roll into your deposit accounts. Rwan Esmail, 19, a student at Hunter College, has not received any emails from her school regarding financial aid refunds. A student at SUNY Potsdam, Lalita Selochan, 22, said that her school has only sent out emails informing students about the distribution of their refunds. However, they did not give them the basic calculations of how much they should expect to get or when they will get it. While Esmail is unsure if she will receive any financial aid refund, her parents have recently applied for the pandemic unemployment assistance (PUA) program.
What about those who work part-time jobs? Or help out with family businesses? These jobs do not qualify for the PUA program. Those who have not filed income taxes for 2018 do not qualify as well. Sherly Solano, 22, an independent contractor, would not have qualified if she did not have jobs other than working for her mother.
The other group of people who work the lowest paying jobs (that others will not do) are also is being left out. These people will not be working “from home” or getting “paid sick leaves” like some of the working-class citizens. They might have an emergency savings fund, but we cannot all bet on that because those funds will not last long given the circumstances. The government could have provided more relief funds to the working-class families, college students, and undocumented immigrants; but chose to give the majority of the government funding to multibillionaire companies. America just made the rich get richer at working-class people’s suffer.
