America's Unemployed Are Fighting Back -- And Are Winning
Courts overturned Maryland governor's order blocking further federal benefits
The nation's unemployed workers — including its long-term unemployed and so-called “gig workers” — haven't just given up in the face of Republican governors all having put orders in place which prohibits the unemployed workers in their states from collecting the federal government's supplemental unemployment benefits.
Unemployed Americans in Texas and Maryland have filled suit to force their states to allow them to continue collecting the $300-per-week supplemental federal benefits.
They join an effort begun by out-of-work Indiana residents, who have yet to see their payments restart despite a court ruling last week ordering the state to continue the benefits.
The Republican governors of 26 states issued orders intended to prevent their states' unemployed residents from continuing to collect the benefit beyond the end of June.
This includes the long-term unemployed and the so-called gig workers who are ineligible from collecting any other form of unemployment benefits.
Republicans have claimed — with scant empirical evidence — that somehow the unemployed would rather subsist on this $300 per week rather than take available jobs.
And now courts in Maryland have sided with that state's jobless population, dealing a blow to Republican Gov Larry Hogan.
Early on Saturday, a Baltimore City Circuit Court judge issued a temporary restraining order requiring the state’s continued participation in the program. Around 7:30 p.m., the Maryland Court of Special Appeals, the state’s intermediate appellate court, entered an order allowing the restraining order to remain in place.
About 85 percent of Marylanders currently receiving unemployment benefits are either long-term unemployed or are gig workers/independent contractors.
The temporary restraining order was first entered by Judge Lawrence Fletcher-Hill around 10 a.m. Saturday.
In his opinion released Saturday morning, Fletcher-Hill wrote that he agreed the plaintiffs in the case would suffer immediate harm if a restraining order weren’t issued.
“In its global scope and in the anxiety that almost all people experience over the threat of disease, the impact of the pandemic has been universal, but the brief stories of these Plaintiffs reminds the Court that the impact of the pandemic has been cruelly uneven,” he wrote. “Some have suffered death or debilitating illness themselves, in their families, or among their friends. Others have experienced severe economic hardship from involuntary unemployment or the inability to work because of the need to take on childcare and elder care responsibilities. As one who has enjoyed the privilege of continuous, secure employment, the Court is particularly struck by the plight of those who have had to struggle with irregular or no employment.”
The temporary restraining order issued Saturday will remain in effect until July 13. The court expects to hold a hearing on a longer-term injunction before then.
Read the Baltimore City Circuit Court opinion.
Read the Baltimore City Circuit Court judge’s order.
Read the Court of Special Appeals order.