Virus causing financial pain even for people still working

ATLANTA (AP) — Getting her job back should have been a relief for Leesa Huddleston.

A kitchen worker at an Indiana casino, Huddleston returned in June after a three-month furlough caused by the coronavirus. She felt fortunate to no longer be among the roughly 30 million Americans who remain jobless and are now struggling with suddenly reduced unemployment aid.

Yet the return of her job hardly ended Huddleston's financial troubles. Her employer, its revenue shrunken by the loss of customers, cut her schedule to four days a week. That meant a $300 drop in monthly pay — money that, along with overtime, had allowed Huddleston to afford rent, a car payment and other necessities. Now, she'll have to decide what to stop paying when she runs through her savings.

“I go from day to day,” said Huddleston, 59. “I handle it better some days than others."

Huddleston belongs to a category of Americans who are largely overlooked at a time when unemployment is high and a critically important $600-a-week federal jobless benefit has just expired: People who still have jobs but whose financial struggles have nevertheless escalated in the face of the pandemic.

Some have endured pay cuts or have had their hours slashed. Others have been furloughed temporarily — without pay. Many just feel seized by fear that their job could vanish at any time or that their struggling employer will go out of business.

They are caught in the grip of a pandemic that has pummeled the economy, forcing lockdowns that closed businesses and leaving many people too worried about infection to travel, shop, gather in crowds or eat out — or barred from doing so by states or localities. Yet their predicaments, as much as the wave of layoffs the virus triggered, speak to the dire impact the virus has had...