On Tuesday, December 14, 2021, VOLS Staff Attorney Tori Roseman testified before the New York City Council Committee on Immigration on supporting low-wage immigrant workers. The meeting discussed possible relief efforts for such immigrant workers who were impacted by the COVID-19 pandemic but unable to obtain important benefits and thus forced to continue to work throughout the duration of the pandemic.
VOLS’ testimony primarily focused on Unemployment Insurance benefits, including Federal Pandemic Unemployment Assistance benefits, and highlighted the enormous numbers of immigrant workers boxed out of these relief measures mostly due to non-citizen status and a lack of work history documentation. We noted how important it is to support these communities by funding legal service providers who can help low-wage workers obtain benefits for which they are entitled and to advocate for more inclusive unemployment insurance matters. Tori Roseman’s testimony is below:
Immigrants and UI (Supporting Low Wage Immigrants post-COVID-19)
The NYC Immigrant working population is one of the most vulnerable and heavily impacted by the COVID-19 pandemic and subsequent citywide shutdown. Though many workers were able to utilize unemployment insurance during this uncertain time, immigrant workers faced a variety of difficulties in obtaining these benefits.
The unemployment insurance system pre-COVID was not built to assist immigrant workers. State benefits, also called Unemployment Insurance Benefits, have stringent requirements in order to qualify: claimants must provide the Department of Labor with W-2 working papers, months of demonstrable work history, reach earning thresholds and perhaps the most daunting – the DOL will call the applicant’s employer, who must verify all information the applicant provided. Without this documentation or acquiescence, applicants cannot collect benefits.
Federal benefits opened the door for many claimants who couldn’t previously collect including independent contractors and self-employed individuals. However, complex reporting requirements still made this process difficult for immigrant claimants. Applicants must provide proof of wages and significantly, Work Authorization Documents or EADs. Yet again, thousands of vital NYC workers were unable to collect life-changing, family-supporting assistance.
Then of course, there’s the occasional situation in which an immigrant worker was able to collect benefits. There are a few reasons why this may have happened – a lack of careful review from the DOL, a misstatement or misunderstanding stemming from the confusing language in the application, or perhaps a misunderstanding of an immigrant claimant’s own work situation as furloughs, reopenings and temporary layoffs plagued businesses. Immigrant workers, and to be fair, workers in general, were often encouraged to apply for these benefits by their peers, neighbors and families. Immigrant workers may have been paid benefits briefly, only for those benefits to be clawed back by the Department of Labor later by confusing and aggressive overpayment notices. These overpayments can be in the thousands of dollars, some as much as $20,000 – money that claimants never had in the first place, and now owe to the Department of Labor.
After nearly a year and a half of this preclusion from benefits, the Excluded Workers Fund finally opened – a unique fund in New York State that would provide comparable benefits for immigrants who were blocked out from receiving state or federal funds. Claimants could receive one of two tiers of benefits if they weren’t able to receive unemployment – either $15600, or a years worth of $300 per week benefits, or $3200, i.e. the collective amount of stimulus payments. However – this fund was only open for approximately eight weeks. Significantly less immigrant New Yorkers were able to claim these benefits in light of the short timeline. In addition, the application was just as complex, if not more so, than applying for unemployment insurance benefits and only available online.
The long and short here is that there is a complete lack of state or federal assistance for low wage immigrant workers, despite the fact that immigrant workers make up a large part of the working population. The Center for Migrant Studies (CMS) finds that two-thirds (66 percent) of the state’s immigrant workers – those in the labor force aged 16 and over — work in essential businesses, compared to 56 percent of the native-born labor force. Foreign-born workers comprise 31 percent of workers in essential businesses, despite representing 28 percent of the state’s labor force. A remarkable 70 percent of the undocumented labor force consists of essential workers.1
As the City moves towards post-pandemic planning – the reopening of non-essential stores, resuming of activities and NYC traditions – it’s easy to forget what those essential workers meant for a population on lockdown. Immigrant workers were those who continued to leave the house when things were most uncertain and continued to serve communities despite the clear danger. Immigrant workers were in restaurants, continuing to keep businesses alive. Immigrant workers were in hospitals, exposed to the virus directly and putting their own health and safety at risk to help others who were struggling.
There needs to be a better system in place – a better program, less stringent requirements, what have you – to help these workers return to normal in a way so many of us are trying our best to. This support system cannot only stem from Community Based Organizations, who work alongside communities hardest hit by the pandemic. It must stem from funding and putting money back in the pockets of a population that is overworked, underpaid and above all else, seldom recognized.
To watch the video of the hearing and VOLS’ testimony, click here. Tori Roseman’s Testimony Begins at the 2:59:50 mark.