Last Friday, Alicia Ramirez stepped out of her East Riverside apartment and hopped on her black Fuji Feather. Pedaling hard to climb the neighborhood’s rolling hills, the 27-year-old hairstylist reveled in the day’s cool breeze and the freedom of riding her bicycle, an exercise she’d largely lost sight of since moving to Austin the previous May.

Until now, Ramirez’s busy schedule at Birds Barbershop on Red River (where she’d typically work around 40 hours weekly, while covering up to six shifts), and adjusting to her new city, had kept her too occupied to ride. But that was before COVID-19 descended upon Austin, sending a tremor of fear and insecurity throughout the city’s bustling economy, costing thousands of local workers—herself included—their jobs.

A few days earlier, the Hammond, Indiana, native and her co-workers were informed by Birds management that they’d been temporarily laid off. Doing so, the company said, would afford its stylists more time to pursue unemployment benefits through the state, an exercise that has proven increasingly difficult as a rash of coronavirus-fueled layoffs has ravaged Texas businesses. Birds also sent each worker off with a check for $200—a gesture that Ramirez says was kind, but not substantive. “It was really a reality check. I mean, ideally I, and every working person, would have wanted to be supported with paid sick leave. So, of course I’m disappointed,” she says. “How can anyone really survive off unemployment anyways? It’s scary.”

Unfortunately for Ramirez, businesses in Austin aren’t required to provide paid sick leave to their employees. In 2018, City Council passed an ordinance guaranteeing workers up to eight days of sick time—a move championed by advocates as a crucial step to protecting workplace benefits—only to see it subsequently struck down by the state. While lawmakers like Council Member Greg Casar were stunned by the decision, many companies who opposed the order (including Birds and local favorites like Amy’s Ice Cream, BookPeople, and Juan in a Million) were galvanized by the state’s intervention, which argued forcing businesses to provide such benefits was an undue burden that would stymie economic growth.

Suddenly jobless, Ramirez says she’s both relieved to be safe at home (it’s impossible to practice social distancing when you’re touching someone’s head, she points out) and anxious about her financial future. Without the $3,000-plus earnings she typically makes every month at Birds, she’s wondering just how long her savings will keep her afloat. “Mentally and emotionally, this process has been a rollercoaster,” she says. “My thoughts are all over the place with what’s happening right now. Now more than ever, it’s transparent how important concepts like Medicare for All and paid sick leave are, and how fragile capitalism really is.”

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Over the past two weeks, local leaders like Casar have been flooded with stories like Ramirez’s. Things are so hectic right now, the two-term councilman says, that his staff had to completely revamp its internal project management system to field all of the incoming requests from constituents—which range from ensuring the safety of low-income senior citizens to fighting the spread of COVID-19 through Austin’s jail system. While tragic, Casar says, several of the city’s most pressing issues could have been avoided had the State of Texas allowed Austin’s 2018 sick leave policy to remain in place.

“Gov. Greg Abbott’s, Ken Paxton’s, and the right wing business lobby’s position on this is not only disgraceful, but potentially deadly. We made that argument back when we passed the ordinance, that this is a public health and safety ordinance,” he says. “We always said history wouldn’t look kindly upon our statewide leaders’ desire to block people’s access to paid sick days—and here we are, only two years later, in the middle of a pandemic.”

With Austin’s policy blocked and awaiting litigation in the Texas Supreme Court, the city is unable to ensure workers receive paid sick leave from their employers, leaving many without any benefits in this dire time. From bartenders and waiters in the service industry to independent contractors and gig economy workers like Uber drivers and Favor runners, countless people have seen their employment dry up without anywhere to turn to for aid, says Rick Levy, president of the Texas AFL-CIO. And those who do still have jobs must decide between their health and making their rent.

“It’s really hard to see. I don’t have an answer for the woman who thought she was going to be working 60 hours a week for South by Southwest and is now working four. Nobody has a wand they can wave at that,” Levy says, adding that his organization’s phones have been ringing off the hook from distressed and recently unemployed workers. “This is a reality made possible by the state’s policies. The virus is horrible, the crisis is horrible, but there’s so much we could have done, and should have done, that would have made our ability to respond so much more effective. There’s nothing inevitable about what’s happening right now; we’ve been warning the state about this for years.”

Up to this point, Texas’ response to the current crisis has been abysmal. A recent survey ranked the state’s approach to the coronavirus 49th out of 51 states and the District of Columbia, a startling figure that’s been buttressed by Abbott’s decidedly hands-off approach to the virus’ spread. In addition, suggesting that local health authorities are best equipped to identify and serve their communities’ needs—a stark about-face from his years-long effort to strip cities like Austin of their political autonomy, including when he worked to block its 2018 paid sick leave policy—the governor has worked to earn political points by temporarily banning abortions rather than rolling out a statewide healthcare strategy. For his part, Attorney General Dan Patrick made headlines this week when he implied that elderly workers should return to their jobs for the sake of their grandchildren’s economic future, telling Fox News that a failing economy is worse than the coronavirus’ deadly implications.

As has been well documented, the Trump administration’s strategy hasn’t been much better. Beyond disseminating confusing—and in several instances, false—information about the virus’ severity and its spread throughout the country, the president (like Patrick) has chosen to focus primarily on its economic impacts. Case in point: The government’s infusion of a whopping $1.5 trillion into the spiraling U.S. stock market, a move that has yet to bear fruit. While Congress did take the historic step of passing the country’s first-ever paid sick leave legislation last week, policy analysts say the bill will likely exclude at least half of workers in the private sector, including many at America’s largest companies.

Congress is also currently considering a $2.2 trillion stimulus package that would flood the U.S. economy with cash in hopes of stabilizing struggling businesses and households, including expanding unemployment benefits nationwide and sending $1,200 checks to many Americans by May. But even if this legislation—which includes little to no safeguards for renters or student debt relief—is passed, there are no clear answers about its impact on businesses that have already cleaned house. Will there be a wave of retroactive hirings to amend the damage that has already been done? And furthermore, how far will those government checks (which many Democrats argue should be worth upwards of $2,000) carry people if this crisis extends into the foreseeable future?

With state and federal leaders faltering, Casar says Austin’s government is doing everything it can to help its citizens weather the ongoing barrage of challenges presented by COVID-19. Working with Travis County authorities, the city has worked to end utility cut-offs and halt forced evictions through May—an effort deemed vital at a time when many Austinites are already living paycheck-to-paycheck (the state followed suit a week later). These efforts are encouraging, the councilman says, but they’re not enough. “We’re doing everything we can to help buy people time, but the city can’t do it on its own,” he says. “We need to be talking about major relief packages from our state and federal governments, something much more significant than what we’ve seen from those levels of government thus far.”

As a result, these circumstances have dropped the issue of employee care squarely into the laps of many businesses. While numerous companies have been forced to shut their doors or lay off the majority of their staff, used clothing store Buffalo Exchange awarded each of its workers two weeks paid leave—albeit, after a petition circulated through its national ranks. Brianna Loera, who earns $13.75 an hour as a buyer at the store’s Guadalupe location, says she was shocked when a manager called her to share the news. “I was really grateful when I found out. I’d been worried I’d have to choose between either showing up to work and risking getting sick or losing my job,” she says. “We’re all in the midst of a terrifying time, but they came through.”

Still, Loera admits she has no idea what to expect moving forward. The store won’t reopen until May (at the earliest), she says, and it’s incredibly unlikely that Buffalo will pay its employees to stay home for another month. “It’s scary enough being in the middle of a pandemic and wondering what the world will look like after this,” she says. “On top of all that, to have to think about budgeting for potentially not having a job—how do you plan for that?”

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Hours after her afternoon bike ride, Alicia Ramirez sits alone on her couch kneading a handful of modeling clay. Gently pressing the dough into a series of soon-to-be earrings, she reflects on the past several weeks, while wondering what the next several will hold. The previous day, she’d spent hours trying to navigate Texas’ unemployment benefits system, oscillating between being placed on-hold and being told the state’s employees were too occupied to field her call. After finally breaking through and reaching a government representative, Ramirez was informed she wasn’t eligible to receive benefits because of a systematic technicality stemming from her recent move to Austin—an experience she described as “a nightmare.”

With no work lined up for the foreseeable future and a mounting list of costs to cover (including rent, utilities, food, and pet care), Ramirez says she’s just trying to hunker down and take things day by day. For months, she’s planned to move back to Chicago, where she lived prior to arriving in Austin last spring. Now, with her lease expiring in May, she just hopes to make it back to the Midwest healthy and with enough savings to weather the economic storm likely awaiting her there.

“I really hope that, from here on out, everyone does their part by respecting the calls for social distancing and quarantining; at the same time, those that are still able to work and have the spare funds to donate, step up and share with the many people who are struggling,” she says, admitting that her upcoming move gives her more leeway to speak out about these issues since she doesn’t have to fear any type of retribution from Birds. “We can all only take one day at a time.”

While Ramirez won’t be in Austin much longer, AFL-CIO’s Levy says the state’s poor treatment of its workforce will continue to hamper Texas workers unless drastic measures are taken. From a robust statewide paid sick leave policy to a complete revision of its meager employee benefits policies, leaders have to act now. Otherwise, he says, our most vulnerable populations will continue to struggle and suffer.

“Right now, we have a state government that’s not at all responsive or in-tune with the needs of the people. Our job is to continue to organize and raise our voices, to educate and change the direction of who’s running this state.” he says. “Because if the people in power aren’t going to listen to us, then we need to take a stand and hold them accountable. We’re going to continue those fights until something changes, until our workers and those in need receive the care, respect, and dignity they deserve.”