Unemployment Insurance – are the self-employed, gig workers, and contractors eligible?
Yes, the bill expands unemployment benefits to cover more workers including self-employed and independent contractors, like gig workers and Uber drivers, who do not usually qualify for unemployment. Overall, the bill provides $250 billion in funding for expansion of unemployment benefits, the largest increase ever.

Does this bill provide individuals more compensation on Unemployment Insurance than they receive via employment?
The enhanced UI is designed to keep as many as whole as possible. Some may temporarily receive more benefit than previous payment – though that number is very small relative to the number of people who will be filing UI claims in next few weeks.

Right now, states pay between $250-500/week in unemployment and they base it on a percentage of a worker’s paycheck, usually between 1/3 to 1/2 of prior earnings. An additional $600 will put some workers at or just above their usual paycheck – this increase only lasts until July 31st. Additionally, the worker must have been laid off by their employer, so they can not voluntarily “opt-in” by quitting. The main point of the overall bill is to provide a lifeline to small businesses, so they don’t have to lay people off in the first place. Without this bill, the UI problem will be magnitudes worse.