A new report makes the case for New York to continue its Excluded Workers Fund, which was started during the pandemic to provide payments to undocumented workers and others who lost income but were not eligible for unemployment benefits. Applications opened last August and closed in October, after the $2.1 billion allocated to it were spent. David Dyssegaard Kallick, director of the Immigration Research Initiative and co-author of the report, noted the fund has helped 130,000 people, which is about 40% of those who are eligible. .
While workers march to Albany to call for the restoration of the Excluded Workers Fund a new report details how the fund was economic success when applied last year.
Immigrant workers and their allies shut down the Brooklyn and Manhattan bridges on March 8 to demand replenishment of the Excluded Workers Fund, which provides aid for undocumented workers who lost their job due to the COVID-19 pandemic. The protest started with a march from New York’s City Hall, where they urged New York State.