By the time self-employed people receive “enhanced” unemployment benefits, it will be too late.

It’s nice that benefits will be paid retroactively so accumulated debt can be satisfied, but it will be too late to save many small businesses. I wonder what Maine’s unemployment rate will be six months or a year from now, when thousands of men and women, who were previously self-employed and self-sufficient or employed by a now-defunct business, will be looking for jobs.

Among the owner-survivors, many won’t be able to sustain previous employee numbers. How many of these people will be defaulting on business and home mortgages, bank loans and property taxes? How many using the welfare system for food, heat, or housing subsidies? How many no longer able to pay for health insurance and using the Medicaid system?

Why does everyone have to stay home when a small segment of the population is actually at significant risk? Isn’t there a more sensible way to protect the health of the at-risk demographic and let the rest of us support the system and ourselves by getting back to work before it’s too late?

Francis Marzilli

New Gloucester

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