Newly jobless storm survivors would exhaust aid sooner without this federal backstop

As the lead organizer of Asheville Food and Beverage United in North Carolina, Jen Hampton is grateful that the union’s members who lost their jobs after Hurricane Helene can apply for federal disaster unemployment assistance, which lasts for as long as six months.

As the lead organizer of Asheville Food and Beverage United in North Carolina, Jen Hampton is grateful that the union’s members who lost their jobs after Hurricane Helene can apply for federal disaster unemployment assistance, which lasts for as long as six months. Currently, the jobless in North Carolina can only receive up to 12 weeks of state unemployment benefits, among the skimpiest in the nation. Having up to 14 more weeks of federal payments is “vital” to helping Asheville’s laid-off hospitality workers ride out the slow winter period, Hampton said. She hopes the city’s remaining restaurants, bars and breweries will be back in business before the tourist season begins next year. “People have got to be supported through this recovery process because we’re not going to be fully reopened for a while,” said Hampton, who estimates that three quarters of the city’s food and beverage workers lost their jobs. “We’re not going to be back to a place of people being able to have stable, secure jobs until probably March of next year because that’s when things start to pick up again.” Federal Disaster Unemployment Assistance, or DUA, is one of the backbones of the nation’s aid package to survivors of hurricanes, fires and other calamities. It provides as many as 26 weeks of benefits — which is the standard for most state unemployment insurance programs — to those who lost their jobs, were injured or can’t reach their workplaces as a direct result of a disaster. (Applicants must first exhaust their state unemployment benefits.) In hurricane-hit states like North Carolina, as well as Florida and Georgia, the federal assistance gives survivors more time to regain employment than their state programs would. Florida provides benefits for up to 12 weeks and Georgia for as many as 14 weeks. Plus, disaster jobless benefits are available to many types of workers who don’t qualify for state unemployment insurance, such as gig workers, farmers and the self-employed.