Brittany Brook lost her job on March 16 due to the coronavirus pandemic, two days after her husband Matthew Whitfield lost his, leaving the New York couple scrambling as end-of-the-month bills come due.
On April 1, Brook, an artist who until recently taught music at a preschool, and Whitfield, a now-former waiter and actor, have to pay the rent and other bills, just like millions of Americans of all social classes who have seen their lives turned upside down by the crisis.
The decisions they make on which bills to pay will provide a clearer picture of the economic damage done by COVID-19 in a country lacking a universal social safety net and where many workers have little savings to fall back on.
“We have, for the first time in our marriage, declined to pay our credit card balances, but only paid the minimum … and called to ask for interest forgiveness,” 31-year-old Brittany told AFP.
The couple also applied for deferred and reduced payments for their student loans.
“We plan to pay our power bill and anything necessary that we can afford, but we will not be paying rent, as that would deplete our savings and emergency funds within just a few months,” says Brittany, who lives with Matthew, 33, in a one-bedroom apartment in New York which they rent for $1,690 a month.
– Asking for charity –
According to Amherst, a real estate analytics and investment firm, 26 percent of US renters may need temporary help to pay their monthly housing bill, which would total about $12 billion per-month.
The federal government’s unprecedented $2.2 trillion aid package will help ease the economic pain, but the $1,200 checks promised to every American — and $500 for each child — will not arrive until the second half of April.
