As we have not yet managed to control our unemployment figures while we wait for the country to reopen, Congress is debating another stimulus package. Unlike the first massive round of stimulus spending, there is a chance that our friends in the swamp would actually fix a problem that was overlooked when they organized the initial tranche of federal improvements to unemployment benefits.
A couple of months ago, Politico reported a deficiency in the Pandemic Unemployment Assistance (PUA) program, one that particularly affected the music industry, but also many other works. The Recording Industry Association of America, along with a host of other related companies and business groups, sent a letter to congressional leaders saying that the PUA program “has overlooked mixed-income workers … In almost every case we see in every state, a minimum amount of W-2 income disqualifies an independent person for PUA and significantly reduces the amount of assistance they receive.The PUA must be updated to recognize these different sources of income and allow people to show their mixed sources of income for a complete accounting of their annual income. “
Meanwhile, the music industry sent a letter to Speaker of the House of Representatives Nancy Pelosi, to House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy, to Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, and to House Leader Senate Minority Chuck Schumer this morning explaining a series of questions, including changes to the Pandemic Unemployment Assistance program. Many musicians and others in the industry “work from project to project and concert to concert, not only in multiple jobs but in various capacities”, receiving a combination of wages and earnings as independent contractors, the Recording Industry Association of America The National Independent Headquarters Association and dozens of other companies and business groups write in the letter.
In other words, if your main line of work is mostly part-time, and you supplement your income with a ton of parallel jobs, contract work, or self-employment (think of Uber drivers or delivery app workers), your income Total Recorded May Fail to Qualify You for Enhanced Federal Unemployment Benefits This ends up leaving workers in the cold when they actually earned enough money to have qualified for the benefits.
The music industry, especially the country music industry, is pushing for this change because many people who work in it work part-time, W2, but beef up their income with a contract job when they don’t have an industry gig of the music available. Why is this specific industry important in terms of all lobbying? Because Senator Marsha Blackburn, who represents Tennessee with its massive country music industry, is one of the senators who is pushing for this solution:
It’s also not such a big change to the existing PUA program. Congress only needs to allow people with mixed incomes to choose which part of their income (the independent contractor side or the employee side) they want to list when applying for improved unemployment benefits.
Unfortunately for them, more than two months after the question started to come up, this issue has yet to be resolved. But it looks like Congress is going to try to push for another round of COVID stimulus funding in the coming weeks. Assuming there are enough votes to pay another several trillion dollars of debt at the stake of our federal finances, this might be a good arrangement to include.
This would not be a bad move for Mitch McConnell in terms of political optics. Democrats are busy saying how the Republican Party is only looking to help their fat cat, their great business friends on Wall Street, and let the “little people” eat cake. This PUA-specific “solution” would target the relatively small number of people with hybrid incomes who are more vulnerable than most to the effects of closure. And if Democrats dared to oppose it just because the idea was raised by a Republican (don’t forget it), McConnell and Blackburn could have lunch on it.
I’m not advocating even more massive spending rounds, but it almost seems inevitable at this point. And if we are going to do it anyway, we could also help some people who were particularly hurt by government decisions to shut down their income stream and get some political points in the process.
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