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Ineligible for unemployment, many ‘slip through the cracks’ amid pandemic

4 min read

Shelly Noce has spent 36 years doing hair, but is still coming to terms with the situation she’s now in.

“I didn’t really give it a thought until I started having to cancel my clients, and then it just hit me: I can’t believe this is happening,” said Noce, who lives in Chartiers Township and owns Shelly’s Hair Studio in Peters. “I have no words to describe how you feel, when you can’t open your door, you can’t go to work.”

Gov. Tom Wolf ordered nonessential businesses statewide to close last week. The move was meant to slow the spread of the highly contagious illness. For those affected by the widespread closures, the state waived the seven-day eligibility period and job-search requirements that normally apply for unemployment compensation.

In just the first two days following the waiver, the state Department of Labor & Industry said it had received 121,000 claims from those freshly out of jobs. Additional statistics, including breakdowns by county and industry, weren’t available on Monday.

But the number of unemployment claims doesn’t count the business owners, self-employed people and those who work under-the-table who are ineligible for unemployment benefits. People in those categories said they are making do while they contend with the uncertainty.

“A lot of people slip through the cracks, myself included,” said one bartender from the Mon Valley who works under-the-table. She asked that she and her employer not be named because of the nature of her arrangement with the social club where she works.

The bartender said she took the job because she earns more than she would elsewhere. She accepted that ineligibility for unemployment benefits was a downside to working in that position, even if she never foresaw something like the COVID-19 pandemic.

She said her situation is more common than many realize. “Especially around here,” she added. “I’ve held several positions at different places before settling at this one, but every one of them was under-the-table, so those workers are falling through the cracks. Plus you have the regular service industry – they don’t get paid much an hour. I know everybody doesn’t claim all their tips, so that’s not going to reflect in what they get back.”

Meanwhile, Noce, who’s self-employed, is unable to collect unemployment to make up for the income she’s losing while she can’t see clients. She said she has enough savings for a month or two and groceries for about a month, but doesn’t know what to expect.

“No one’s given us any indication of how long this will last,” she said.

The U.S. Small Business Administration is offering low-interest disaster loans for Pennsylvania businesses affected by the pandemic, but Noce said she wouldn’t qualify because she has no other employees.

Even for eligible companies, things aren’t so simple. Jim McClelland, of Washington, is president of YESCO Contracting Inc. McClelland said he stopped work midway through two jobs because of the governor’s order late last week. The company has three employees.

McClelland said other business owners are in similar positions. He started a Facebook group, Washington County Small Business Coalition, so they could support each other.

He and his wife, Darlene, have owned their company since 2004. For a number of years the McClellands worked full-time jobs elsewhere. They started running YESCO full time again just last year, taking on some debt to do so.

“A lot of people go into debt to get into business, so their credit rating’s not that great,” McClelland said. “The SBA isn’t automatically approving because of this financial crisis. They’re not just going, ‘OK, we’ll give you $30,000 to make it through the crisis.”

He said the loans would require an application process, and businesses whose credit ratings were lower because of things like debt probably wouldn’t be approved.

“So again, where’s the economic assistance to help the business through these times?” he said.

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