Reps Push Financial Relief for Performers + Venues on Congress Floor

As Congress reconvenes on Capitol Hill to hammer out legislation addressing dire health, economic, and social justice topics, two pairs of politicians are introducing legislation that could impact the nation’s actors, who are now struggling through the fifth month of an entertainment industry shutdown. 

Representatives Adam Schiff and Judy Chu, both Democratic California members of the House of Representatives, have introduced a bill that will allow workers who combine their earnings from a steady job and freelancing to receive the entire benefits package of congressional relief titled the Mixed Earner Pandemic Unemployment Assistance Act.

Another new bill, called the ENCORES Act, would provide financial protections and benefits to shuttered entertainment venues. The legislation has been introduced by Representative Ron Kind, a Democrat of Wisconsin and Representative Mike Kelly, a Pennsylvania Republican.  

In late March, shortly after the United States hunkered down en masse to curtail the rising infection rate of COVID-19, Congress swiftly passed a $3 trillion relief bill with rare bipartisan consensus. The CARES Act included special benefits for American workers, making independent workers eligible for unemployment insurance and additional bonuses. 

In addition to allowing freelancers to qualify for state-run unemployment insurance where they could not before, Congress committed to providing an additional $600 weekly to unemployment payments and a one-time $1,200 check. 

While the CARES legislation was celebrated by actors unions and trade organizations for its swift approval in a notoriously slow Congress, there were loopholes and oversights. “[O]ur traditional system of supporting unemployed workers was not set up for nontraditional workers with mixed-income, like the many artists and craftspeople in my district who supplement a W-2 with independent gig work,” said Chu.

“For many workers, the relief provided by the CARES Act is making a crucial difference in helping make ends meet during this unprecedented period of disruption,” said Schiff. “Yet due to the nature of independent work, particularly in industries like entertainment, many workers are currently excluded from Pandemic Unemployment Assistance because they earn a living through a mix of self-employment and traditional W-2 jobs.”

Schiff, a principal prosecutor in the impeachment trial of President Donald Trump, is considered one of the most influential Democrats in the Congress and has proven to be a friend of SAG-AFTRA, the nation’s union for screen and media talent. Along with Chu, Schiff regularly proposes legislation with a wink, nod, or outright battle cry to the union’s base, which has over 160,00 members—many of them living in Chu and Schiff’s districts. 

“As the industry works diligently to safely restart film and television production, entertainment workers are relying on unemployment benefits to feed and care for their families,” said Gabrielle Carteris, SAG-AFTRA’s president. “[The legislation] corrects an unintended flaw in the CARES Act that resulted in affected performers receiving a fraction of the weekly benefits they are owed as taxpayers.”

Many actors are relying on government relief assistance to stay afloat in a profession that necessitates one of the most apparent transmission opportunities for a highly contagious virus: physical proximity. As the country witnesses a second spike in infections following a passive response from Trump’s administration, some are concerned that even if performers can financially stay afloat during the pandemic, venues might not. 

“These entertainment centers are part of every community’s identity, but state mandates have created financial hardship and put them at risk of permanent closure,” said Kelly of the ENCORES Act, which provides tax credits for venues that provided refunded tickets since mid-March. 

“In this time of such uncertainty and darkness, we cannot allow the light of the arts to go out,” said Kind. The Democratic Party, which Kind is a member of, has been kinder to the arts in crisis relief legislation than their rivals across the aisle. During debates over CARES Act spending, Republicans used arts funding as a political lightning rod, calling the relief “unnecessary or wasteful.”

Both chambers of Congress are currently in session attempting to negotiate on a new relief bill as a sequel to the legislation passed in late March, as COVID-19, unceasingly, marches on and many of the bill’s protections are set to expire at the end of July. The Senate is negotiating whether special boosts to unemployment insurance will continue.