Pritzker 'cautiously optimistic' on 'bending curve'
Pope Francis backs Universal Basic Income, as Trump administration pulls back on unemployment for gig workers
Pope Francis came out in favor of Universal Basic Income over the Easter weekend. (Flickr/Catholic Church of England)
By Ted Cox
The governor said he is “cautiously optimistic” the state may be “bending the curve” on the coronavirus pandemic, even as Illinois topped 20,000 confirmed cases of COVID-19 in 86 counties, and the death toll reached 720.
The 1,672 new cases reported Sunday remained consistent with other recent single-day figures, and brought the state total to 20,852, while the 43 new deaths reported was down slightly from one-day figures last week.
At the daily briefing Sunday at the Thompson Center in Chicago, Gov. Pritzker saw that data as a cause for tentative optimism, saying, “I’ve spoken before about a stabilizing or bending of the curve, and today is another piece of evidence that it might be happening.”
Pritzker had urged Illinoisans last week to observe Passover and Easter at home, and the state seemed largely to comply. In Rome, Pope Francis came out in favor of a Universal Basic Income, both in his Easter address at the Vatican and in a letter sent to popular movements and organizations around the world.
“In these days of great anxiety and hardship, many have used war-like metaphors to refer to the pandemic we are experiencing,” the pope wrote. “If the struggle against COVID-19 is a war, then you are truly an invisible army, fighting in the most dangerous trenches; an army whose only weapons are solidarity, hope, and community spirit, all revitalizing at a time when no one can save themselves alone.
“This may be the time to consider a universal basic wage which would acknowledge and dignify the noble, essential tasks you carry out,” he added. “It would ensure and concretely achieve the ideal, at once so human and so Christian, of no worker without rights.”
Andrew Yang, the former Democratic presidential candidate who has advised the White House on the $1,200 stimulus checks going out to U.S. workers, applauded the pope’s stance, calling it “game-changing.”
But those $1,200 checks are one-time payments, not regular boosts to income, and otherwise the Trump administration appeared to be trying to claw back unemployment granted to so-called gig workers, including freelancers, tipped employees, and ride-share drivers. Unemployment benefits for those workers — often called 1099 workers for the income form they file with the IRS, as opposed to a W-2 for salaried employees — were included in the most recent $2.2 trillion relief passage passed by Congress and signed by President Trump.
The Washington Post reported Friday that U.S. Labor Secretary Eugene Scalia has called those benefits “too generous” and has been working to implement rules on the new unemployment benefits that would “limit who qualifies.”
Chicago Sun-Times columnist Lynn Sweet reported on that in a piece published in Monday’s paper. Scalia’s move drew a caustic response from Pritzker spokeswoman Jordan Abudayyeh, who issued a statement saying: “The U.S. Department of Labor took weeks to roll out stringent and confusing regulations around how to implement an entirely new program. The state of Illinois is working through those regulations now and is contracting with an outside firm to help us stand up the additional benefits for 1099 workers in the coming weeks, but it's clear the Trump administration is working to limit who qualifies for benefits.”
On Sunday, Pritzker repeated the statement he made Thursday that the state has to create an entirely new system in the Illinois Department of Employment Security to accommodate 1099 workers idled by the coronavirus pandemic. He added, however, that it was yet another example of the Trump administration failing to lead on the public response to the crisis, in that the federal government should have created a central system that would “allow each of the states to immediately stand up an unemployment-benefit process” for 1099 workers. “So each state is now struggling to put something up that will work for those independent contractors.”
On Friday, Illinois Public Health Director Dr. Ngozi Ezike advised Illinoisans that they can sign up for COVID-19 text alerts on their phones by texting “COVID” to 3125003836. They can get the alerts in Spanish by texting “COVIDESP” to the same number.
On Sunday, state Rep. Greg Harris of Chicago drew attention to a new Call4Calm program, administered by the Illinois Department of Human Services, providing hotline help on mental health via text. “If you want to speak with a mental-health professional, simply text ‘TALK’ to 552020, or for Spanish, ‘HABLAR’ to the same number: 552020,” Harris wrote in an email to constituents. “Call4Calm is free to use, and individuals will remain anonymous. Once you send a text to the hotline, within 24 hours you will receive a call from a counselor from a local community mental health center to provide support.
“You can also text 552020, with key words such as ‘unemployment’ or ‘food’ or ‘shelter,’ and will receive information on how navigate and access supports and services,” he added.
Harris cited U.S. Rep. Jan Schakowsky of Evanston in saying that Illinois is working to set up a system to process unemployment claims from 1099 workers, and that IDES hopes “to be able to start accepting these applications in about four weeks, and then it may take up to two weeks after applications are filed for payments to be issued.”