Re: “Crisis far from over for Maine women suffering prolonged unemployment” (March 16):
College students are some of the COVID-19 pandemic’s most affected groups. Young adults who graduated in 2020 and anyone graduating this year are unable to find professional jobs. However, it is the students who are still in college and need part-time or seasonal jobs who are being completely overlooked.
In Maine, college-age students working for the summer help to keep the tourism and hospitality industry afloat. Nevertheless, because of the pandemic, many of these short-term jobs were unavailable, leaving hundreds of thousands of students unemployed.
It is these very students who are considered dependents of their parents and do not receive stimulus payments of their own. This assumes that all parents who claim their young adult children as dependents are taking care of them and offsetting the effects of their unemployment. This is not the reality for many of Maine’s young people. Many of them work because they need to support themselves and their education.
Without part-time employment or a stimulus check, countless college students are putting their education at risk by taking time off or dropping out.
Skylar Bennett
Yarmouth
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