PORT ORANGE, Fla. — Monica Goins used to teach financial wellness classes to her fellow corporate professionals. Now, she’s living on food stamps, struggling to keep the lights on in her Port Orange mobile home.


What You Need To Know

  • Monica Goins lost her job two months after moving to Florida

  • She has 16 years of banking experience and has applied for more than 100 jobs

  • Goins's parents helped her pay utility bill recently

  • More than 44% of jobs lost last March and April have not returned

  • Related: Disabled veteran, former teacher told she doesn't qualify for aid

“Every day, I’m a little bit closer to losing everything that I own,” Goins said.

It’s a surreal moment for Goins, a self-described “go-getter” who worked as a banking professional for more than 16 years until last summer, when she and her 15-year-old daughter moved down to Central Florida from Ohio. The new job Goins found here only lasted two months, she said, until she was laid off because of the COVID-19 pandemic.  

Now, more than 100 job applications later, Goins is still unemployed. Her unemployment claims in both states are frozen, and she can’t figure out why, despite spending hours every day online and on the phone with program administrators. 

With no current income, Goins can’t afford to pay the bills. Her parents stepped in recently to cover utilities, but as retired people living on fixed incomes, they can’t help Goins any longer.

“I am put in a position now where I'm backed into a corner,” Goins said. “My hands are tied.”

Goins isn’t alone. A new analysis of a recent Bureau of Labor Statistics report found that women have suffered the majority of the U.S.’s pandemic-related job losses. The analysis, published by The National Women’s Law Center, found that women accounted for all of the 140,000 net jobs the economy lost in December.

For Goins, it feels especially disheartening to be told she doesn’t qualify for assistance programs, despite having paid into the system herself.

“It makes me sick, really,” Goins said. “That there’s no help for single moms, or single dads, and people struggling financially like this, that have put in over 30 years of work and paid into the system, and can’t pull anything out of it.”

It’s the first time in her life she feels like she can’t provide for her daughter, Goins said. With no health care apart from emergency Medicaid, they can’t go to the doctor for anything unless there’s a serious problem. 

“I’ve never been this bad off before,” Goins said. “Financially, morally, emotionally.”

Goins’s resume is stacked with accomplishments in strategic planning, leadership, and customer service from her years working in banking. But time and time again, she’s rejected from every job to which she applies. 

The U.S. economy lost more than 22 million jobs last March and April, at the start of the COVID-19 crisis. More than 44% of those jobs have not returned, according to the The National Women’s Law Center report.

As her credit score plummets and she waits for her car to be repossessed, all Goins can do is keep refreshing web pages, dialing phone numbers, and waiting for any sliver of positive news from a job or an assistance program.

“I just need the opportunity for someone to give me the ability to help myself. And I'm not getting that opportunity,” Goins said.


Molly Duerig is a Report for America corps member who is covering affordable housing for Spectrum News 13. Report for America is a nonprofit national service program that places journalists in local newsrooms to report on undercovered issues.