‘I’m Still Unemployed’: Millions In Dire Situation As Savings Start To Run Out

Hundreds of unemployed Kentucky residents wait in long lines outside the Kentucky Career Center in Frankfort for help with their unemployment claims on June 19. New research shows savings built up by the jobless are starting to run out.

John Sommers II / Getty Images

When the coronavirus pandemic hit this spring, government relief payments provided a life raft to millions of people who had been thrown out of work.

That life raft, however, is now losing air, threatening to leave the unemployed in a perilous situation just as Washington leaders struggle to clinch a new package of aid ahead of the November election.

New research from JPMorgan Chase Institute and the University of Chicago focused on 80,000 unemployed people shows savings built up when the government provided aid is now rapidly running out, leaving people like chemist Kate McAfee fretting about their futures.