To the editors:
I received a call from Ohio Unemployment a few days ago. They answered a question I’ve been asking myself and agents for four months; why was I disqualified from Ohio’s Pandemic Unemployment Assistance (PUA) program, and what is the status of my appeal?
The answer was simple. I was disqualified due to an internal system error because of the State-contracted vendor that hastily set-up the digital infrastructure in less than a month. Mind you, record-high unemployment due to the global pandemic hit the state within that timespan. Agents never explained what vendor they are. They just said the state contracts them to facilitate the PUA program. My appeal would’ve never worked because the real information behind my disqualification was hidden behind corporate red tape. As it turns out, my reason for pandemic-related unemployment didn’t live up to the standards of this private vendor and the State, and they didn’t think it was important enough to tell me in the first place. I think it’s important to note that I was told by multiple agents before my disqualification that I was greenlit to start receiving benefits. There is a lot of misinformation circulating around the State, the vendor, and claimants, which further complicates this entire process.
It was a very disappointing revelation, but it was one that provides me with more peace of mind than stress and panic. I make more money at my new job for less than a month of work than I would’ve received from the PUA program over four months. I am also grateful I have no post-graduation student loans, a support network I can mostly rely on, and nothing but time on my hands to politically revitalize my workplace and community. Not everyone in my circles can say the same, and that’s why I’m using my socioeconomic privilege to help my community resist Neoliberal and Proto-Fascist hegemony.
The agent at PUA and I agreed with one another that the government should have more control over the PUA relief program, provided more funding for community wellness and welfare services, and been more communicative with unemployed workers relying on some form of financial assistance to make ends meet. This still isn’t enough and definitely not an ideal situation. The community and its workers need to build a vast mutual aid network to assist one another without the help or influence from a bourgeois state apparatus and its economic vassals. Current local, state, and federal government institutions have proven they care little or nothing about the unemployed workers and residents that have helped build their economic and political empires over centuries. The Ohio government especially seems to care more about economic growth for nuclear reactors than they do about the people that voted them into office and pay their salaries.
This entire process has been nothing less than anxiety-inducing for me and apparently thousands (if not millions) of other “customers” (what the vendor calls claimants) who have been left with radio silence for months while trying to figure out their status in the PUA program. The private vendor and Ohio Department of Job and Family Services operate completely separately from one another, so residents and workers will have zero chances to get answers from the State.
If the Department already handles “the state’s public assistance, workforce development, unemployment compensation, child and adult protective services, adoption, child care, and child support programs,” then why can’t they handle the implementation and oversight of PUA? It’s because the Neoliberals and Proto-Fascists in power want to privatize and deregulate community welfare.
Another reason why the privatization of PUA is troublesome is because an agent from the vendor specifically advised me not to get the state government involved after I called them to get information on my appeal’s status. If this doesn’t make your blood boil, I have no idea what else will. The only reason I received closure on my account was because I called my state representatives, and they questioned PUA and the vendor for me. It’s not a preferable solution, but if you’re a claimant and not getting an answer, call your representatives. Save yourself and your loved ones the unnecessary stress.
My main takeaway from this entire ordeal is simple: the United States empire is full of failing institutions which do not meet the needs of the general public. It’s only a matter of time before it collapses under the justified rage of the working class. If the government cannot take care of their residents they represent during a global pandemic, they’ve lost all legitimacy to govern our lives. We need to take the power back and provide more efficient and practical alternatives to bureaucratic capitalist welfare.
Communities need to organize vast mutual aid networks, facilitate political education, organize decentralized LGBTQAI+ BIPOC worker-owned militias as alternatives to state policing, and organize labor and tenant unions. This is only one set of tactics for any meaningful change, and we need to unite different tendencies of worker-centric politics to safeguard our political movement against White Supremacist and Fascist reactionaries.
The road ahead is long and difficult, and there are other important issues to consider in addition to the pandemic (prison abolition) and unprecedented unemployment (student fears over ICE deportations). But if we recognize our collective struggle and show solidarity in whatever capacity we can, we will win. We have nothing to lose but our chains.
Nic (they/them/their). Nic was a resident of Athens and an alum of Ohio University until they were forced to move back home out-of-state because of a lack of PUA benefits from the state of Ohio.
