Christine Tartaglione's Labor Report

Senator Tartaglione and her colleagues in the PA Senate Democratic Caucus have unveiled a new $4 billion COVID-19 relief and recovery plan that would provide resources directly to Pennsylvania families, workers, businesses, healthcare providers, educational institutions, first responders, local governments, and other entities that have been devastated financially by the pandemic.

Known as the Pennsylvania Coronavirus Aid, Relief & Economic Security Act of 2021 (PA CARES 21), the proposal follows up on the original PA CARES plan that was developed by the Democratic Caucus in October, but was excluded from the Fiscal Year 2021 Supplemental Budget adopted by the Republican-led General Assembly on November 20th.

“Funding for all of these needs was included in our prior PA CARES proposal – a proposal that Republican leadership in the General Assembly dismissed,” Senator Tartaglione said during a video news conference hosted by the Democratic Caucus. “Instead, they used the $1.3 billion in federal CARES Act funding to balance the state budget. That’s why I voted against the budget.”

In her remarks, Senator Tartaglione highlighted three key areas of need among many: funding for high-volume Medicaid hospitals; higher education; and small, independent businesses, particularly restaurants, taverns, caterers, and the hospitality industry.

“Hospitals that serve a high volume of Medicaid-insured patients have borne a very heavy burden during the pandemic,” Senator Tartaglione said. “COVID-19 has affected minority and low-income communities disproportionately. Facilities like Temple Hospital and Einstein Medical Center have seen the highest share of COVID patients and have the highest share of Medicaid patients. They are providers of last resort. They serve patients that have nowhere else to go.”

The PA CARES 21 plan would allocate $100 million to high-Medicaid volume hospitals.

“Higher education is another priority,” Senator Tartaglione said. “Pennsylvania’s colleges, universities, and vocational schools are experiencing declining enrollment. They have also lost income from students housing, meals, and other on-campus expenditures.”

The PA CARES 21 plan would distribute $136 million among State System of Higher Education and state-supported universities, community colleges, and career-technical colleges, as well as the Institutional Assistance Grant (IAG) Program.

It would also allocate $800 million for business assistance, including $300 million exclusively for restaurants, taverns, caterers, and the hospitality industry.

“These businesses are the lifeblood of our communities, our commercial districts, our tourism, and our economy,” Senator Tartaglione said. “They employ hundreds of thousands of Pennsylvanians and have been decimated by COVID mitigation policies like occupancy restrictions and bans on indoor service.”

“Meanwhile, their financial obligations continue to pile up. They are taking on massive debt just to keep the lights on and keep enough staff in place to prepare for the day when they can start rebuilding their businesses again. They are doing everything they can to improve health protections for patrons and staff. We have an obligation to make them whole.”

PA CARES 21 would authorize the Commonwealth to issue $4 billion in emergency debt to recapitalize programs previously funded with federal CARES funds and establish new programs that provide targeted assistance to struggling Pennsylvanians and struggling sectors of the economy. In addition, the Caucus supports fixing programs created by Act 24 of 2020 (the PA Housing Finance Agency’s rental assistance program) as requested by stakeholders to maximize program effectiveness.

More information on the proposal and the caucus’ work in pandemic relief is available online at pasenate.com/pacares.

PA Labor Secretary Urges U.S. Senate to Renew Unemployment Funding as Over 500,000 Would Lose Benefits

As Pennsylvania Senate Democrats introduced the PA CARES 21 plan to provide a new round of comprehensive COVID-19 relief for the Commonwealth, retiring PA Department of Labor & Industry Secretary Jerry Oleksiak called on the US Senate to advance legislation for additional federal assistance.

Without new relief, more than a half-million Pennsylvanians will lose unemployment benefits on December 26th when the federally funded Pandemic Unemployment Assistance (PUA) and Pandemic Emergency Unemployment Compensation (PEUC) programs expire.

“To allow tens of thousands of Pennsylvanians and millions of Americans to lose their income during a global pandemic in the middle of winter and the holiday season is beyond cruel,” said Secretary Oleksiak. “L&I is working with our partners to identity other state programs and assistance for out-of-work Pennsylvanians with urgent needs, such as food and housing. But Pennsylvania needs the U.S. Senate to extend the PUA and PEUC programs before Dec. 26 by passing an extension through legislation, such as the HEROES Act.”

PUA and PEUC were created by Congress in March as part of the federal CARES Act in response to an unprecedented surge in national unemployment caused by the COVID-19 pandemic.

PUA provides up to 39 weeks of unemployment benefits to individuals not eligible for regular unemployment compensation or extended benefits, including those who have exhausted all rights to such benefits. PUA claimants include self-employed works, such as independent contractors, gig economy workers, and workers for certain religious entities, as well as individuals seeking part-time employment, lacking sufficient work history, and those who otherwise do not qualify for regular unemployment compensation or extended benefits.

PEUC provides 13 weeks of additional unemployment benefits to qualified individuals whose regular unemployment benefits were exhausted on or after July 6, 2019. PEUC has become increasingly critical as the pandemic continues because more unemployed Pennsylvanians are reaching the 26-week maximum for traditional Unemployment Compensation. L&I urges an extension to this program to assist the Pennsylvanians who will be unable to resume working or find a new job through no fault of their own until after the pandemic and related economic troubles have ended. Approximately 109,000 Pennsylvanians will exhaust or be cut off from their benefits if PEUC is not extended.

“In addition to the tens of thousands of Pennsylvanians who will directly lose their benefits on Dec. 26, the abrupt conclusion of these two critical programs will have devastating secondary effects on the businesses where claimants spend their benefits,” said Secretary Oleksiak. “The end of PUA and PEUC will further paralyze the economy, causing additional job losses and business closures. I am urging the U.S. Senate to act immediately to extend these programs and protect the American economy from suffering more damage.”

Secretary Oleksiak retired from the Department of Labor & Industry effective December 4th after more than three years of service in the Cabinet position. Governor Tom Wolf has appointed Jennifer Berrier, the former Deputy Secretary for Safety and Labor-Management Relations, as Acting Secretary and will nominate her as Secretary.

PA L&I Warns of New National Unemployment Benefits Scam, Assures Authenticity of Recent Email to PUA Claimants

Department of Labor & Industry (L&I) retiring Secretary Jerry Oleksiak has reminded residents to remain vigilant against scams as new reports emerge nationally of fraudsters offering cash rewards to access state unemployment benefits.

“As we continue to work with our state and federal law enforcement partners to prevent frauds and scams, please note the Pennsylvania Department of Labor & Industry will never contact you and ask for your personal, private information,” said Secretary Oleksiak. “If you receive a call, email, text, social media message, or other communication seeking information such as your username, password or full Social Security number, do not provide it. We will never ask you for this information.”

The latest scam involves fraudsters engaging in social engineering to commit identity theft by circulating emails and Facebook posts informing recipients they won a prize. When the victim clicks on the link, the attacker has them take steps to tie their identity to the attacker's login.

L&I does not currently offer assistance to claimants over social media messaging due to the inability to guarantee security and confidentiality, and messages received from “L&I” over social media are most likely fraudulent and should be ignored.

Multiple states, including Pennsylvania, have been inundated with fraudulent unemployment claims, primarily through the federal Pandemic Unemployment Assistance (PUA) program, which assists out-of-work individuals who are typically ineligible for traditional unemployment compensation. Due to this issue there have been questions about the authenticity of a legitimate email distributed by L&I to PUA claimants between 5 PM and 6 PM Thursday, November 19, 2020, from the email sender “LI, oucbp-fedp-pua.” This is the account name for UCPUA@pa.gov. The department submitted this communication to all claimants who have emailed UCPUA@pa.gov since March 15th as a follow-up during a special review of emails.

Claimants concerned that this email may be a phishing attempt and hesitant to reply to the sender can provide the requested information directly to UCPUA@pa.gov.

Any PUA claimant with outstanding questions or concerns about their claim is encouraged to submit the following information directly to UCPUA@pa.gov:

For more information on identifying fraud, what to do if you believe you have been a victim of fraud, or how to report fraud, visit L&I's website.

A Year After ICE Raids, Labor Department Finds Wage Theft, Child Labor Violations in Miss. Poultry Plants

Several Mississippi poultry processing plants have agreed to pay back wages and penalties after the U.S. Department of Labor accused them of minimum wage, overtime, and child labor law violations. The same companies were among those raided by U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement last year for their alleged employment of hundreds of undocumented workers.

The companies cited include Peco Foods Inc., Koch Foods of Mississippi Inc., and Pearl River Foods LLC.

According to the DOL, the companies failed to pay final paychecks to workers upon their separation from the job. In addition, Pearl River made illegal deductions from employees’ paychecks to pay for Personal Protective Equipment (PPE) such as gloves and aprons. The deductions caused employees’ pay to fall below the federal minimum wage of $7.25 per hour. The Department also found that Koch failed to account for production bonuses when calculating employees’ overtime pay, causing the company to pay less overtime wages than required by law.

Koch was also found to have employed a 15-year-old in meat processing operations, whereas the legal minimum age for that occupation is 18.

The companies paid a combined $45,719 in back pay to 129 affected employees. Koch paid a $1,693 civil penalty for the child labor violation.

In August 2019, Peco, Koch, and Pearl River were among seven agricultural processing plants in Mississippi raided by ICE’s Homeland Security Investigations agents, who seized business records and detained about 680 undocumented workers. It has been described as the largest single-state raid in the agency’s history.

In August 2020, one year after the raids, the Mississippi Clarion Ledger reported that the poultry plants and their managers had suffered relatively few penalties as a result of the immigration violations, yet the workers and their families have suffered greatly.

“One year later, attorneys and advocates say there is a grave imbalance,” the newspaper reported. “The consequences for workers, their families, and communities have been devastating and could last for years. In contrast, the top executives at the chicken processing companies targeted in the raids have yet to face penalties for their role in hiring hundreds of undocumented workers and profiting from their labor.”

November 2020 National Jobs Update

The seasonally adjusted national unemployment rate fell for a seventh consecutive month in November 2020, though at a slower pace, dropping to 6.7%, down 0.2% over the month. The rate in November was down 8.0% from 14.7% in April, its highest level in the history of the seasonally adjusted series (dating back to 1948 - prior to this time, unemployment was estimated to have hit roughly 25% during the Great Depression of the 1930s). Between February and April 2020, the national unemployment rate rose 11.2% (from 3.5% to 14.7%).

This and the other changes to data noted in this update reflect the evolution of the national employment situation through the coronavirus pandemic (please see the **footnote below). Over the month, unemployment rolls fell by 326,000 individuals, lowering total unemployment to 10.735 million. Since hitting a series record high of 23.078 million in April (with growth of 17.291 million between Feb. and April), total unemployment has declined by 12.343 million. However, as has been the case during the pandemic, the Bureau of Labor Statistics has indicated that unemployment figures would have been higher for the month if survey respondents had been properly classified as unemployed on temporary layoff.

As of November 2020, the national unemployment rate still stood nearly double, or 3.2% higher than, its level of 3.5% in February 2020 (which matched the 50 year low seen in 2019) with total unemployment standing 4.948 million higher than the February 2020 level of 5.787 million individuals. For context, the unemployment rate had declined 1.2% with total unemployment down by 1.731 million individuals over President Trump’s term as of February 2020. National unemployment statistics for the month are as follows:

As indicated above, total unemployment’s rounded percentage of the labor force, or unemployment rate, fell over the month (rate = unemployment / labor force). The labor force is the total number of employed individuals combined with the total number of unemployed individuals actively searching for work. Growth in the labor force can be a sign of a strengthening economy from more people working and/or more individuals searching for jobs. Following a period of recovery, the labor force fell for the second time in the last three months, dropping by 400,000 individuals in November 2020, a combination of total employment* declining by 74,000 individuals and total unemployment down by 326,000 individuals as noted above, lowering its total to 160,467,000.

As of November 2020, the labor force stood 3.986 million individuals above its low of 156,481,000 in April 2020 during the coronavirus emergency (unemployment down 12,343,000 & employment up 16,329,000), after falling by 8.065 million between February and April. As a result, the November 2020 labor force is still 4,079,000 individuals (unemployment up 4,948,000 & employment down 9,027,000) lower than its level of 164,546,000 in February 2020 (near the record high of 164,606,000 in Jan. 2020). For context, the national labor force had grown by 4,899,000 individuals (unemployment down 1,731,000 & employment up 6,630,000) over President Trump’s term as of February 2020. National labor force statistics for the month are as follows:

Non-farm* job rolls rebounded for a seventh consecutive month, albeit at a much slower pace, with growth of 245,000 in November 2020, raising total non-farm employment to 142,629,000. As of November 2020, non-farm job rolls are up by 12,326,000 since hitting the employment level low of 130,303,000 in April 2020 during the coronavirus emergency (following a loss of 22.160 million between February and April).

As of November 2020, total non-farm employment stood 9,834,000 less than the record high level of 152,463,000 in February 2020. For context, non-farm employment had grown by 6,836,000 over President Trump’s term as of February 2020. National non-farm employment statistics for the month are as follows:

*Total employment for labor force provided by U.S. Census Household survey. The separate BLS Establishment survey measures non-farm jobs only.
**Survey periods for data are roughly the middle of the month, meaning changes occurring beyond this time are not captured for the month.

PA County Unemployment Ranking October 2020

(Seasonally adjusted; State Rate: 7.3%; Source: PA Department of Labor & Industry.)

Tartaglione, PA Senate Democrats Unveil $4 Billion COVID-19 Relief and Recovery Plan

PA Labor Secretary Urges U.S. Senate to Renew Unemployment Funding as Over 500,000 Would Lose Benefits

PA L&I Warns of New National Unemployment Benefits Scam, Assures Authenticity of Recent Email to PUA Claimants

A Year After ICE Raids, Labor Department Finds Wage Theft, Child Labor Violations in Miss. Poultry Plants

November 2020 National Jobs Update

PA County Unemployment Ranking October 2020