Meet a woman who taught art to retirees for over 20 years and worries for the future as her unemployment aid expires: 'The pandemic is absolutely not over and kids aren't vaccinated'

Kelly Kilmer making art.

Kelly Kilmer

• On Labor Day, millions of gig workers will lose all the unemployment benefits they had during the pandemic.
• One of them is Kelly Kilmer, who's been a traveling art teacher for over 20 years.
• "It's what I do. It's what I love. I've worked really hard at doing it and it's just frustrating not to be able to be in a room with my people," she says.
• See more stories on Insider's business page.

Kelly Kilmer loves teaching art. Since 1998, she's traveled the country to teach her workshops to people across the US.

She said she didn't make a "ton" of money with this career, but it was always enough to get by. It's something she loves, that she's been doing for more than two decades.

When the pandemic hit, she had been out teaching the first weekend in March, and had courses and workshops booked out for months. But Kilmer postponed her classes because of the outbreak. Mandatory stay-at-home orders turned those postponements into cancellations. At home, it was her and her husband (and her son came to stay for a bit).

She applied for Pandemic Unemployment Assistance (PUA), a new federal program that made self-employed workers and gig workers eligible for benefits, as soon as it was introduced. That's one of the federal programs that will come to an end on Labor Day. On September 6, an estimated 7.5 million Americans will lose PUA benefits completely, according to a projection from the left-leaning Century Foundation, including Kilmer.

Many industries have been devastated by the pandemic, but the arts - especially those that take place in person - are still very much at the mercy of the virus, while its workers scramble to either move online, pivot, or wait out what was supposed to be a temporary situation. A survey from Americans for the Arts found that 95% of respondents lost creative income, and 63% had experienced unemployment in 2020.

Teaching art was never a big business for Kilmer, but it brought her joy to teach classes full of mostly retired women in their 60s and older. She's been taking online art and business classes to try and expand her teaching, and is learning about applying for grants.

"I am still very nervous because I've never had to rely on internet-only workshops. I've taught in person for 24 years now," Kilmer wrote in an email to Insider.

The pandemic means that world could be over for good.

Here's Kilmer's story in her own words, edited for brevity.

I've been on unemployment, and that's thankfully been enough to pay rent and bills and basically keep a roof over our head and put food on the table - but not much more.

I've just been trying to figure out what to do - how to change my business and, do it in a different way.

I was hoping by now that I would be back to teaching in-person classes. Basically none of the places where I teach in California are having in-person classes. Nobody feels safe.

People have said, "Well, why can't you do online workshops?" but that's a whole other thing in terms of accessibility. My internet speed until just recently was one-and-a-half megabytes. It was basically slower than dial-up, which to do like a Zoom class made it impossible. Not to mention the fact that I don't really have the equipment and things like that. Plus, doing it online is very different than teaching in person.

I've taught in-person workshops for 23, 24 years now. It's what I do. It's what I love. I've worked really hard at doing it and it's just frustrating not to be able to be in a room with my people.

It's just frustrating that they have an arbitrary date of September 4 with variants and Delta and everything going on.

I've supported my family doing this for more than 20 years and I don't make a ton of money doing what I do, but I make enough money. And it was always enough money to be able to pay all the bills on time and to keep the rent going and food on the table, etc.

But you're always about one step away. The "check engine" light came on in my car the other day. So now I don't know what I'm going to do, you know? So it's just basically being able to survive and live.

I'm worried with the program ending.

I'm worried about the fact that the safety net programs are going away - not just for me, but for a lot of people. Where I live, there's already homeless people, there's people who are in tents on the streets everywhere you go. I think it's going to get worse and it's really upsetting to see that that people are being forced out of their homes with the eviction moratorium ending.

I'm worried about what's going to happen, that people just are not caring about other people like they should be caring.

[Editor's note: The Biden administration's most recent eviction moratorium was struck down by the Supreme Court. Goldman Sachs estimates that landlords will evict 750,000 households by year end.]

I don't want to be on unemployment. I want to be teaching my classes.

I get $167 a week on unemployment, plus this $300, the "extra." So I get about $1,800 a month and I live in Los Angeles; $1,800 a month doesn't go that far.

I want to be surrounded with the people that I've been teaching and working with for all these years and doing what I love to do on a weekly basis.

My classes, sometimes they're in Florida, sometimes they're in Maryland, they're all over the country. Most of the people, they're older women who just don't feel comfortable and safe taking workshops right now, and I don't blame them. I just wish people had more empathy about everything right now. I think that if that was the case, we would be in a much different situation than we're in right now.

I'm scared. I'm really worried about what's going to happen just nationwide, not just California, but everywhere. And I wish that people would step up and realize that the pandemic is absolutely not over and kids aren't vaccinated, not to mention the people who just won't get the vaccine for whatever reason.

My husband and I did get one of the $600 [stimulus checks California has been sending with American Rescue Plan funds], that helped a lot.

The American people need help and that assistance should continue until after the pandemic is over.

If you want to keep people safe, if you don't want any more deaths, if you don't want people homeless or hungry and on the street or even in the streets, they have to step up and do something.

I'm concerned, too, because as a self-employed gig worker, this is the first time I have a safety net because of the PUA program. And I know I'm not alone.

I know that I have several actor and musician friends who can't work right now for just various reasons. It's mostly just because of COVID.

There is talk of a WPA-style bill (CERA, Creative Economy Revitalization Act) being introduced for artists.

During the beginning of the pandemic, people stuck at home turned to art and artists. Art is essential. We may not be essential workers but we are essential. A WPA-style program that would help to keep many of us afloat and give us work in our own communities would benefit society as a whole.

[Editor's note: Kilmer was referring to the Works Progress Administration, a 1930s-era New Deal program that sponsored the arts in an effort to employ Americans.]

I think [the economy] is going to get worse, and we need to put into place some sort of additional safety programs for the vast number of gig workers, 'cause there's a lot of gig workers out there right now. And they're getting people talking about them more, but I don't think they're talking about them enough and they're not realizing these people work really hard. I don't just mean artists. I mean the Uber drivers and the grocery store people who are bringing your food, because you don't want to go to the grocery store.

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