Please Take Action to Support Emergency Disaster Unemployment Assistance!

ACTION ALERT:

Please take action to support emergency disaster unemployment assistance!

Many non-profits, including many dioceses and churches, do not participate in state unemployment insurance programs. With this unexpected drop off in tithes, school tuition, and donations due to COVID-19, many churches will face increasing financial hardship. If a church does not participate in the state unemployment insurance system, their laid-off employees cannot receive these benefits.

Last evening Senate Republicans released the “phase three” draft of the COVID relief legislation. This bill is called the CARES Act. The current draft does not provide unemployment benefits to church workers who cannot claim benefits from state unemployment insurance programs, though there is interest from Members of Congress to fix this problem. The bill provides many other forms of needed tax relief and direct cash benefits to Americans, which many are calling for in this crisis.

As a second option, we suggest the following, which would also provide unemployment insurance to non-covered employees by allowing employers to opt-in to state unemployment insurance for a certain period. Finally, we are also concerned that the Senate CARES bill provides insufficient consideration for nonprofits on the front lines of the crisis, does not include any stimulus funding for private K12 schools, and still needs to address a technical fix to ensure migrants can access COVID-19 testing.

In light of this quickly moving package, we ask you to contact Senators Cruz and Cornyn today, to make sure they are aware of this problem of workers in multiple states who don’t currently have access to state unemployment insurance, and to ask that they support an effective solution. We have created a tool for you to do that via OneClickPolitics, which you can access here. 

Thanks for your advocacy to protect Texas workers! 

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