Editor’s Note: Part of the following article is an excerpt from a recent letter that the Center for Public Justice’s Families Valued team submitted to the United States Senate recommending the continuation of expanded unemployment insurance past July 31 during the ongoing pandemic. The letter itself offers several recommendations to strengthen the unemployment insurance system overall. The article below focuses specifically on how this expansion is relevant and beneficial to both faith-based employers and faith-based workers during the ongoing public health crisis. This article also draws on the Families Valued resource How Changes in the Unemployment System Affect the Sacred Sector.
Both faith-based organizations and workers are being directly impacted by financial challenges related to the ongoing public health crisis. In this moment, we have heard anecdotally from many faith-based organizational leaders that they continue to have questions and challenges regarding how to navigate government support programs that could benefit them and their workers. Through recently enacted legislation and new guidance, the United States Congress and the U.S. Department of Labor have made changes to the unemployment insurance system that affect individuals across the country, including in the sacred sector. The sacred sector broadly refers to those businesses and nonprofit organizations who are guided by a sacred mission. It includes faith-shaped service providers and educational institutions as well as congregations and houses of worship. Those who work in the sacred sector include clergy, employees of sacred sector institutions, and independent contractors and self-employed persons who serve as clergy, worship leaders, writers and teachers.
Enhanced Compensation Under the CARES Act
(Note: The following information on expanded unemployment and work-share programs is excerpted from this Families Valued resource)
The Coronavirus Aid, Relief, and Economic Security Act (CARES Act), enacted on March 27, 2020, enhanced benefits for individuals who become unemployed or lose work in three principal ways:
Establishes a short- term increase in the amount of unemployment compensation provided until July 31, 2020. Individuals receive an additional $600 in compensation per week, called Pandemic Unemployment Compensation (PUC)Authorizes an additional 13 weeks of unemployment insurance (past the typical 26 weeks awarded by states). This benefit, called Pandemic Emergency Unemployment Compensation (PEUC), lasts until December 31, 2020.
Creates a new program to make unemployment compensation available to those who are not typically covered by the unemployment insurance system including self-employed workers, some independent contractors, clergy and other religious workers. This program, Pandemic Unemployment Assistance (PUA), lasts until December 31, 2020. An individual may receive PUA for up to 39 weeks. Benefits can be combined with $600 per week PUC to provide comparable assistance to standard unemployment awards.
Work-Share Programs Encouraged by the CARES Act
Over half of the states have in place work-share programs (also known as Short-Time Compensation). Through a work-share program, an employer may reduce hours across its workforce rather than laying off workers. Employees receive supplemental compensation through their state’s unemployment agency to make up for loss in pay. The CARES Act provides funding to states to establish and expand work-share programs during the COVID-19 crisis.
How These Programs Help FBOs Advance Their Missions
Faith-based organizational leaders we have spoken with, especially those in under-resourced communities, have shared that they either have had to lay off individuals. or they foresee having to lay off workers in the coming months. Many faith-based employers remain uncertain of what programs within the enhanced unemployment system their workers are eligible for and how they can help their workers navigate the expanded unemployment programs that they are eligible for if they are laid off. Moreover, it seems very few faith-based employers understand how the work-share programs encouraged by the CARES Act could help them to retain their workforce in a difficult season.
The expanded unemployment system under the CARES Act is important for both faith-based organizations and their workers. These programs can help faith-based organizations to live out their own faith-based values with respect to caring for the families of their workers during this unprecedented pandemic. Expanded unemployment options offer some assurance to faith-based employers that if they are in the untenable position of having to lay off workers, those workers, including those not normally covered by unemployment, can apply and receive the financial support they need. But some faith-based employers are only now learning about how these CARES Act provisions can benefit their workers. One leader stated: “A lot of our pastors didn’t even know that this existed until recently and [some still are not aware]. We have been focused on providing essential care and services. These are the churches [whose workers and community members] need it the most.” In this way, these provisions for enhanced unemployment compensation not only support the individuals who receive financial assistance during their time of unemployment, but they benefit their families and all the social institutions in which those individuals live their lives.
The following excerpt from a CPJ comment letter contains important information for faith-based employers and workers regarding the enhanced unemployment provisions under the CARES Act. We encourage faith-based organizational leaders to read the following information carefully and consider taking action. Immediate action for faith-based organizational leaders could include ensuring any laid-off workers know how to navigate enhanced unemployment provisions, and also providing resources for services recipients, congregants or community resources about how to access and navigate these programs. Immediate action for faith-based organizational leaders in states with work-share programs could include considering whether this program could be a good fit for helping to retain staff during the ongoing pandemic.
Excerpt from CPJ Comment Letter:
Continue Supplemental Assistance with State Unemployment Programs
Many of the nonprofit faith-based and religious employers the Center equips are experiencing a different timeline than the one assumed in the CARES Act. In the first several months of the pandemic, these employers were serving their communities’ immediate needs: organizing food pantries, navigating aid systems, and connecting service recipients with resources and support. In April, when some employers were looking towards what they needed to stay afloat, faith-based organizations were still addressing urgent community needs. Now that communities are adjusting to a new normal, many faith-based organizations in our network have expressed concern for the future: The Paycheck Protection Program provided critical short-term support for some institutions, but the trajectory of their work is now uncertain. Organizations are grappling with how revenue and programming may be impacted in the weeks and months to come. For example, charitable contributions are predicted to decline as much as $40 billion this year and next due to economic conditions. This uncertain future will likely result in work loss in the coming months. Without extending a version of pandemic unemployment, these workers—who worked hard to serve their communities in the first months of the pandemic—will not have access to the relief that was available to their service recipients.
Over 150 economists recently signed on to a letter to Congress acknowledging that “full economic recovery will remain dependent on the public health situation.” In light of this uncertain reality, as well as what is known about the choices workers will make to ensure food for their families, we cannot allow PUC to expire at the end of July without another form of supplement in place. Congress should continue a level of support that 1) state systems can quickly administer, and 2) will provide practical support to workers and their families who may experience work loss in coming months.
Maintain Worker-Employer Relationships with Work Share
Work is inherently good and an important part of human flourishing; it provides opportunity for humans to cultivate talents, provide for family, and exercise responsibility. Work share programs (also known as short-term compensation) could be a vital tool, especially in our current economy. As community economic and health conditions evolve, there will likely be slow restarts, and some stops and starts in the employment. Maintaining the worker-employer relationship within the changing environment is often in the best interest of both workers and employers. In areas that have experienced high, persistent rates of unemployment, staying connected to work can make a big difference to employers as well as workers and their family routines.
Work share programs enable this mutually beneficial relationship. In the 26 states that have operational work share programs, employers have access to an alternative to laying off members of their trained workforce. Instead of layoffs, employers can temporarily reduce workers’ hours. The employees impacted by reduced hours are allowed to collect part of their unemployment insurance (assuming they are eligible) to replace part of their lost wages. The program also requires employers to maintain worker health and retirement benefits as though worker hours were not reduced.
A faith-based employment placement program recently shared with the Center that many of the families they serve are eager to get back to work. Many of these families are grateful for the enhanced unemployment insurance to which they had access while they were laid off. As workplaces reopen, they are doing so slowly, with stops and starts. In some cases, workers are called back with fewer hours than desired. Work share, which the Department of Labor has clarified can be used to rehire previously laid off employees also, could benefit both employers and workers. Unfortunately, few workers or employers are familiar with work-sharing.
In considering ways to facilitate safe returns to work, Congress should better promote work share programs to states and employers. As Congress discusses types of relief to include in the next relief bill, Congress should continue to incentivize states to set up work share programs as part of their unemployment insurance system. These incentives should continue to include funding and technical expertise in building and maintaining the program infrastructure. Finally, where possible, bureaucratic roadblocks should be minimized so that states can accelerate the implementation of these programs.
Support Religious Communities, Include Non-Traditional Workers
Many of those who lead and support religious communities do so in non-traditional employment roles. Administrative assistants in church offices, child care workers at centers run in houses of worship, pastors, contractors sharing expertise are all common examples of those workers who are generally ineligible for assistance during seasons of hardship from work loss. Yet, they are among the many Americans whose work contributes to the vitality of our communities.
Religious organizations and congregations administer vital social services to their local community. They run food pantries, care for the elderly, and facilitate parenting classes. Religious organizations and congregations also contribute to the provision of counseling services, organizing neighborhood associations, and facilitating civic engagement. In addition to their important role in addressing community needs, Ram Cnaan, an international expert in the areas of faith-based social care and policy, has demonstrated that congregations also contribute to the local economy. Given this level of community impact, it is clear that the flourishing of nontraditional workers is wrapped up with the flourishing of all of our families and institutions. As Congress considers the future for unemployment insurance, our system should continue to include workers who are not traditionally included, including religious workers, but whose work is no less valuable. (Excerpt end).
Conclusion
Faith-based organizations and congregations, especially small, emerging organizations, continue to face challenges regarding navigating multiple government assistance programs created to help sustain both employers and workers through the public health crisis.
Faith-based organizations believe that their people are what matters most for their embodiment of their faith-based identities in their communities. It is often said in the faith-based nonprofit sector that “you can’t share what you don’t have.” This phrase captures the idea that faith-based organizations seek to employ people who holistically incarnate the spiritual commitments central to how they live out their missions. And yet, for congregations and faith-based nonprofits who face the exceedingly difficult decision/necessity of laying off those who serve as frontline ambassadors for their work in the world, these provisions that offer both enhanced unemployment options for workers and work-share options for employers can offer some hope that these invaluable individuals and their families will be sustained financially through this pandemic and beyond.
If you are a faith-based employer wondering what you can do, consider the following:
Share your story of how you or your workers are benefitting from and/or facing challenges navigating the enhanced unemployment and/or work-share provisions with our team. You can reach out to Chelsea Langston Bombino at chelsea.langston@cpjustice.org.
Consider watching CPJ’s Work Loss in a Pandemic Webinar to get a preliminary understanding of: how the sacred sector is affected by loss of work, how the CARES Act changed the unemployment insurance system, how states are adapting (or not adapting) to pandemic unemployment conditions, what CARES Act unemployment changes mean for individuals and faith-based organizations.
Reaching out to your congressional representative to recommend the following:
Supplemental assistance, such as Pandemic Unemployment Compensation, should be continued, in some form, to uphold workers, their families, and enable safe returns to work.
Work share programs could be vital tools for maintaining employer-worker relationships, and should be promoted and streamlined for easy implementation across the country.
Public dollars should continue to be invested in modernizing and strengthening the systems administering unemployment insurance, so that they are accessible for all workers.
To support religious communities, unemployment systems should continue to include workers not traditionally included.
WANT TO GET INVOLVED?
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