For most of us here in Maine, this has been a trying time. Many of us are feeling nervous about the future, or even the present. We are facing all sorts of stresses in this, the biggest public health crisis of our time. For some people, bills are piling up while little income is coming in. For others, the demands of homeschooling children are competing with work responsibilities. And for many, there is an emotional toll as we worry about the health and well-being of our loved ones. This is a hard time, and I wanted to share some updates as we take on this new environment.
By a great margin, the issue I have heard the most about from my constituents are the problems associated with collecting, and even applying for, unemployment compensation. This pandemic has shown us that our unemployment benefit system was simply not ready for a crisis of this magnitude. I know many of you have been encountering system errors and some have been waiting for application approval. At a time when many people are worried they won’t be able to afford groceries, I know that being patient for something like this is incredibly difficult. I want to assure you that the Maine Department of Labor is working as hard as it can to address the unprecedented number of claims received over the past month. MDOL has hired 100 new employees to cover the phones and it is working to get money out to qualifying individuals as quickly as possible.
For those of you who were waiting for expanded eligibility, I have good news. Starting May 1, MDOL is accepting applications for self-employed workers, independent contractors, fisherman and farmers, gig economy workers and more. Visit the MDOL website to learn more about who is now eligible and how to apply.
All of us are worried about the toll that COVID-19 is taking on our economy. To help the state reopen as soon as it is safe to do so, Gov. Mills announced a set of guiding principles and a phased approach that will allow her, with the help of medical professionals and business owners, to facilitate our reopening. Beginning on May 1, the “Stay Healthy at Home” order has been replaced by the “Stay Safer at Home” order. This order outlines a four-stage plan to reopening Maine’s economy, opening more and more kinds of businesses each month, expanding limits on group sizes, and slowly lifting social distancing.
A key segment of our economy is tourism. The closer we get to summer, the more we are thinking about how central tourism is to the Maine economy, and we need to figure out how to support the industry through what will most certainly be a shortened season. In 2018, 37 million people visited Maine. Those guests added $610 million to our state tax base and were responsible for $2.6 billion going directly to workers. As we operate on a much smaller scale, our municipalities and the bars, restaurants, hotels, shops and more that rely on our visitors will be hard-pressed to come out of this crisis. As we work through the proposed phased approach to get all of our economy back up and running, I know our communities are thinking about this on the local level, and I am working to ensure there are stronger, more specific regional and statewide discussions to address the tourism industry in particular.
I want you to know that as your representative at the State House, I am here to help in this difficult time. Please continue to reach out to me. I am available at 207-287-1430 or shawn.babinew@legislatrure.maine.gov. Step by step and day by day, we will get through this pandemic together.
Rep. Shawn A. Babine is serving his first term in the Maine House of Representatives, representing the coastal region of Scarborough. He serves on the Legislature’s Joint Standing Committee on Innovation Development Economic Activity and Commerce.
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