Before COVID-19, Nikki Rentz was a full-time pet sitter and dog walker in East Atlanta.
“All that went away, every single bit of it,” Rentz said. “There were a few people that worked at the CDC that I could still walk their dogs, but even those eventually phased out to working from home.”
She’s an independent contractor and therefore not eligible for state unemployment benefits, but she filed for unemployment anyway after Congress passed the relief bill for states. It included $600 a week for gig workers, freelancers and other people like her, who lost their jobs because of the coronavirus.
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