When 2020 began, C. Adams started a new job at an engineering firm that paid $65,000. He had already downsized to a three-bedroom home in Georgia to help save for his two teenage daughters’ college funds. Expenses were manageable. When the pandemic began, he had $5,000 in savings after taking care of his late father and his debts. It wasn’t a lot of money, but it was something his family could fall back on, a sense of security.
He never expected it would all be gone so soon.
Adams hung on to his job longer than many, through March, April, May, and June. But the virus was far from under control, and in July he became one of the country’s millions of unemployed. His wife supported the family doing sales at a nursing home, supplemented by the $375 a week Adams started getting in unemployment benefits — but it wasn’t enough. Their monthly expenses for housing, transportation, and other basic needs exceeded what they were bringing in. The payments on a car Adams got when his old one broke down at the start of the year were depleting their funds quicker than he had planned for. By autumn, there was nothing left.
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