Pa. women who leave jobs to care for kids are being wrongfully denied unemployment

When her Berks County school board voted in August to send Maegen Wagner and her colleagues back into classrooms, Wagner knew she had no choice: She would have to quit the job she loves.

The assistant teacher’s 7-year-old daughter, Elizabeth, has Down syndrome. The family pediatrician said it was too dangerous for Elizabeth to return to school or day care.

Wagner is a single parent and Elizabeth’s sole caregiver, making it unsafe for the 39-year-old educator to work in a building where the coronavirus could spread, and impossible to work in-person during hours when she would need to watch her daughter and her 10-year-old son.

She should have been assured of her financial survival because Pennsylvania case law is clear: If parents must leave their job because of lack of child care, they are eligible for unemployment benefits.

But that’s not what happened. Four months after that school board vote, Wagner learned the state denied her application.

Pennsylvania’s regular unemployment application does not include child care among the reasons that applicants can cite on their initial application, making it difficult for these working parents to know how to describe their situation. If something is unclear, experts say, it is common for overextended claims managers not to reach these jobless workers to clarify.

The Pennsylvania Department of Labor and Industry does not track these data and could not provide information on how many claims were filed due to a lack of child care, or how many were denied, accepted, or appealed.

But experts say this issue has impacted potentially thousands of working parents in Pennsylvania from getting aid to which they are entitled during the worst public-health crisis in a century.

“You shouldn’t be punished for a labor market you don’t control,” said Kathryn Edwards, an economist at the Rand Corporation. “We’re pushing this hardship on families when really all they did was struggle with a program that was intended to cover them.”

The economic effects of the pandemic have especially severe consequences for working women, who are more likely than men to be either single parents or primary caregivers directly affected by the widespread loss of child care.

There were nearly 2.1 million fewer women in the labor force in December, compared with February 2020, before the pandemic shut down the economy, according to an analysis from the National Women’s Law Center. In Pennsylvania, unemployment claims spurred by the pandemic were more likely to come from women than men, according to an analysis from Pennsylvania State University of claims from February through Oct. 10. The analysis also found Black and Hispanic women faced the highest levels of unemployment.

In Philadelphia, according to the analysis, the unemployment rate for women was 5.1 times higher than the rate prior to COVID-19′s economic impact.

The Labor and Industry Department attempts to reach out to applicants and resolve claims as quickly as possible. But cases like those involving someone voluntarily quitting because of a lack of child care “require more intense, individualized scrutiny,” department spokesperson Sarah DeSantis said in an email.

“Individuals can and do win their appeals, which is a sign that this important process is working,” DeSantis said. “We are aware that many Pennsylvanians are living paycheck to paycheck and struggle while awaiting the determination process. ... If an individual mentions an urgent need for food, housing, or something else, we work to connect them to programs.”

Many mothers shared Wagner’s experience. While she waited for a ruling, Wagner was on food stamps for the first time. She fell into credit card debt buying toothbrushes and repairing her car. At one point, she was unable to pay for shampoo and conditioner.

If working parents or guardians like Wagner had been simply laid off, they would have an easier time collecting unemployment, said Sharon Dietrich, litigation director for Community Legal Services, based in Philadelphia.

“It’s a technicality that really makes all the difference,” Dietrich said.

Even though the Biden administration has proposed significant investments in child care and pledged a majority of elementary schools would soon be open five days a week, these mothers say they need more help now.

“As a single parent,” Wagner said, “you don’t have anybody to fall back on.”

The Pennsylvania Supreme Court first supported a parent’s right to unemployment due to lack of child care in 1991.

The case was brought by a single mother of two children. She tried rearranging her work schedule as a waitress at TGI Friday’s, but her employer did not allow it. Still, the unemployment office denied her benefits claim, saying her child-care issues were not “insurmountable” and were not a “necessitous and compelling reason” to leave a job. She appealed the decision.

Eight years after she quit her job, the state Supreme Court sided with her.

Pennsylvania is one of 16 states that allow people to quit for familial obligations and still qualify for unemployment.

“Our law is actually pretty good on this issue,” Julia Simon-Mishel, an attorney with Philadelphia Legal Assistance, said about Pennsylvania, “if it’s applied correctly.”

But, Simon-Mishel added, “At a base level, the questions we have on our initial application for unemployment don’t necessarily get the best information from claimants.”

People applying online for unemployment are presented with a list of a dozen reasons to describe why they lost their job. Those who left because of child care would have to choose “quit.” Later in the application, they can choose a second reason for leaving, such as “personal,” and have limited space to elaborate. The paper application includes even fewer opportunities to explain.

Simon-Mishel said this application, online or in paper, should be written in a way that makes it clear what information the government needs to effectively and efficiently evaluate a claim.

DeSantis, the Labor and Industry Department spokesperson, said adding “lack of child care” as a reason to the application form would do little to change the process.

Staffers “would still need to reach out to these individuals to verify eligibility in the same manner that this currently occurs,” DeSantis wrote, giving both applicants and employers “an opportunity to be heard.”

As Burlington County was emerging as a pandemic hot spot over the summer, Krystal Foti’s babysitter quit over fears of the coronavirus. Foti searched for a week but couldn’t find other child-care options as her sons, ages 7 and 15, tuned in to virtual school.

Foti, 41, ended up leaving her job at a Pottstown temp agency to take care of her family. She filed for unemployment in Pennsylvania.

As weeks turned into months without payment, Foti fell behind on rent and couldn’t pay bills. She lost her Westampton home with a backyard where her children played with their pit bull, Bundle. She moved her family to her mother’s house in Roebling, where she now sleeps in the same bedroom as her sons. She couldn’t afford Christmas presents for her children.

“Our backs are against the wall. I don’t know what they expect us to do,” Foti said. “The schools are closed. What are single parents to do?”

She couldn’t find work or get in touch with the unemployment office. She learned she was denied on Nov. 16. At that time, she said she had never heard from any unemployment office employee with questions about her situation.

She appealed in December, further explained her experience, and won, receiving her payments last month, six months after her initial claim.

Dietrich, of Community Legal Services, said claims managers should be given clearer guidance so these mistakes don’t happen. The exodus of women from the workforce because of a lack of child care when schools switched to virtual is well-known, she said. The unemployment office should have grasped that, she said, and adjusted its process so these parents are not stuck in limbo and then unfairly denied.

“It just seems like for whatever reason the claims handlers are not getting this,” Dietrich said. “Each claims examiner is left to their own devices.”

Jhaneisha Dunn, a 25-year-old mother of four children under 8, was tired of waiting to receive the unemployment checks she applied for in April, after having lost her job in early March for calling out sick.

Payments were delayed across the state, but the Hershey mother needed income to support her family. She tried to pursue overnight work, first at a UPS warehouse and then a Red Robin. But as her children’s primary caregiver, she found it was too difficult. She had to quit those jobs when the hours changed and interfered with the time she needed to be home for her children’s virtual school days.

Dunn applied for unemployment each time she lost her job. Her initial claim, related to her first job, led to about five months of back payments at the end of August, and then checks biweekly until Dec. 26, she said. Dunn used that money to pay overdraft fees, past-due rent, her car payment, and other bills.

Now, she said, her brief positions have held up her initial claim.

“I can’t wait another five to six months for payment. I’m going to be homeless,” Dunn said. “We need the help. I don’t like relying on anybody for anything. I love to work. I want to provide for my family. I don’t want to wait for the government to give me assistance, but I need it.”

Women’s being disproportionately forced out of the workforce during the pandemic has long-lasting consequences for their career development, retirement contributions, and earning potential, said Shana Bartley, the director of community partnerships at the National Women’s Law Center. A delay in unemployment payments, like the one Dunn experienced, will only worsen this economic disparity.

“That whole ability for women to be in the workforce, contributing to the economy, providing for their families, that is all based on the ability to access critical care-giving resources,” Bartley said. “Racism and sexism are built into so many of these systems and the assumptions of family structure, they are so antiquated. ... Women are definitely bearing the brunt of this crisis.”

Wagner, the Berks County single mother of two, found another job last month and successfully won her January appeal with the unemployment office.

But after so much time without a paycheck, she is still struggling to pay bills that accumulated interest as she waited to receive her benefits.

“It’s just terrible to have to go through this,” Wagner said. “I’ve just been driven further into debt during this time period. I don’t understand how unemployment could let things get this bad.”