‘Why Us?’: A Year After Being Laid Off, Millions Are Still Unemployed

A store in New York City stands closed on April 21, 2020. A year after the pandemic started to spread, millions of Americans are still unemployed.

Spencer Platt / Getty Images

Janitor Gloria Espinoza still vividly remembers the moment she was laid off last year.

A supervisor gathered her and her colleagues at a parking lot of the office where she worked in San Francisco and then broke the news.

“I thought, ‘God, why us?’,” Espinoza said. “It was like receiving a bucket of cold water.”