Disaster Unemployment Assistance ends Sunday, cutting off 13,000 Mississippi households from about $200 per week in aid designed to help those who lost jobs to Hurricane Katrina.
While legislation had been introduced extending the federal benefits for a second time since the storm, Congress failed to act before it adjourned a few weeks ago. It reconvenes next week, and many advocates say that without the special assistance, nearly 60,000 people from the whole Gulf Coast rim who are getting DUA will be left struggling.
Gulfport native Earl Campbell, 44, became a table dealer at the Gulfport Grand Casino when it opened more than a decade ago. After the Grand was left sitting in the middle of U.S. 90, and Campbell's Courthouse Road home was destroyed by Hurricane Katrina, his employer paid him and his colleagues until November.
Many say DUA contributes to the high unemployment rate on the Coast by giving people an excuse to get money for nothing and not go back to work.
Campbell called this idea absurd, that with the casino industry still limping back and people like his wife struggling to find work because she is often "overqualified," just a little more time is needed for the economy to offer the right jobs to the right people.
"I can't wait to go back to work," Campbell said. "So many friends relocated to Arizona, Philadelphia, Miss., Illinois, Indiana, to go back to work. We don't want to just sit at home collecting unemployment. I couldn't leave because I have a 76-year-old father who lives nearby."
Campbell said his wife, kids - his 2-year-old daughter, Lela, recently underwent complicated surgery - and ailing father rely almost entirely on his wages, and he was making do with his savings and the $189 per week he was receiving in DUA. (Campbell said he was quoted at $210 per week, but the federal government took $21 per week in taxes from the check.)
Unemployment rates reached a record high after the storm in South Mississippi, when it was about 20 percent. At that time, as many as 300,000 people were receiving DUA, said Andrew Stettner of the National Employment Law Project, a nonprofit group that advocates on the behalf of low-wage workers.
These days, Hancock, Harrison and Jackson counties have unemployment rates of 14.3 percent, 14.2 percent, and 10.3 percent respectively, according to a recent study by the Mississippi Department of Employment Security. These are almost 4 times the national average.
About 13,000 people are on DUA from Mississippi right now, said Stettner. While the MDES did not provide any breakdown of how many are from the Coast in time for this article, Stettner said he guesses that a vast majority are from the Coast, especially with so many casinos and related industries offline.
DUA is different from normal unemployment benefits in that it is more of a stop-gap solution to disaster circumstances and is normally paid for out of federal disaster funds, Stettner said.
"They're a critical lifeline to families," said Stettner, adding that an additional 13-week extension (the first one was in March) on DUA would bring everyone right into line. "As these families overcome major struggles they need some form of income to live on."
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