{"id":186560,"date":"2025-08-30T06:02:12","date_gmt":"2025-08-30T06:02:12","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/186560\/"},"modified":"2025-08-30T06:02:12","modified_gmt":"2025-08-30T06:02:12","slug":"uc-report-measures-palisades-eaton-fires-impact-on-employment-press-telegram","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/186560\/","title":{"rendered":"UC report measures Palisades, Eaton fires\u2019 impact on employment \u2013 Press Telegram"},"content":{"rendered":"

Unemployment insurance claims increased by 12% to 17% in Los Angeles County after the Palisades<\/a> and Eaton<\/a> fires in January, according to a new report<\/a> released by University of California researchers at the California Policy Lab on Monday, Aug. 25.<\/p>\n

The fires claimed 31 lives and more than 16,000 structures were damaged, including nearly 2,000 business establishments.<\/p>\n

The research, done in partnership with data from the California Employment Development Department (EDD), compared the increase in unemployment insurance claims to the previous year and nearby counties to determine how much these claims could be attributed to the fires.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhat the report tries to do is understand, in a bit more detail, how the effects of the fires rippled across workers in Los Angeles \u2014 understanding who these people are, where they work, what sort of jobs they held,\u201d Peter Mannino, a senior data analyst and one of the authors of the report, said in an interview.<\/p>\n

More than 5,200 workers filed disaster unemployment assistance claims, which expanded benefits to gig workers, independent contractors and self-employed workers who otherwise wouldn\u2019t qualify for unemployment insurance. California\u2019s EDD began processing these applications on Jan. 25 and the deadline ended in June.<\/p>\n

CPL\u2019s report found that the impact on workers extended to ZIP codes outside of areas directly affected by the Eaton and Palisades fires, with claim increases found in central and south LA.<\/p>\n

\u201cSeeing that most of the affected workers lived outside those communities was a surprising and interesting effect,\u201d Mannino said.\u00a0 \u201cI think the report provides kind of a nice framework on how policymakers might be able to use this data, that they also have access to, to respond to future disasters.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

Amy Yu, an attorney at the Neighborhood Legal Services of LA County (NLSLA), spoke about the spillover effects unemployment has in neighboring communities.<\/p>\n

\u201cA lot of people who lost their homes also affected people\u2019s livelihoods, even though they don\u2019t live in the area,\u201d Yu said. \u201cIf homeowners are having trouble rebuilding, then all of these people with those non-traditional, cash-paid jobs are going to be affected because they can\u2019t come back to their workplaces that depend on people having a home.\u201d<\/p>\n

NLSLA is a non-profit organization providing free legal assistance on an array of issues, including workers\u2019 rights and appeals for any issues that may arise when applying for unemployment insurance or disaster unemployment assistance.<\/p>\n

The report estimates that 30% to 40% of potentially impacted workers filed unemployment insurance claims. Mannino discussed how this range was estimated based on who lived or worked in or near fire-affected areas, since no information exists on the total number of those who lost their jobs due to the fires.<\/p>\n

The 30% to 40% estimate could be a \u201cconservative\u201d range, especially considering how impacted workers could\u2019ve lost required documents in the fires which \u201ccan definitely limit who has access to these important programs,\u201d Mannino said.<\/p>\n

Justin Adri, who is self-employed in design fabrication and landscaping, lost several files he kept in a storage container at Zorthian Ranch<\/a>, a 45-acre ranch located in Altadena that was devastated by the Eaton fire. Pressed against the deadline to file for unemployment, he said it was hard to show proof of his past income due to the lack of documentation and hasn\u2019t received any unemployment benefits.<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019ve had no correspondence since my application, and I thought it would just take time,\u201d Adri said. \u201cI feel like I\u2019m being ignored.\u201d<\/p>\n

Another key finding from CPL\u2019s report highlighted uneven impacts across different industries, such as the accommodation and food services, real estate and health care and social assistance sectors. Disproportionate impacts were found for workers with an associate\u2019s degree or some college and those with a high school diploma or less schooling.<\/p>\n

According to the report, White workers showed a larger increase in unemployment insurance claims than other racial and ethnic groups. The report noted the difficulty in \u201cdrawing conclusions about the impact of the fires across different racial or ethnic groups,\u201d specifically because unemployment insurance programs are not accessible to undocumented or informal workers. The report stated that this aspect could reflect differences in whether or not ethnic groups access these resources, not necessarily larger impacts on White employees.<\/p>\n

\u201cAccess to these programs is definitely shaped by resources,\u201d Mannino said. \u201cAnd that can disadvantage a lot of communities that don\u2019t quite have the resources to access these programs.\u201d<\/p>\n

Debra Sudo-Marra, a senior attorney at NLSLA, discussed the difficulties her organization had in outreaching to Asian American populations impacted by the fires for legal aid resources.<\/p>\n

\u201cThere was a lot of fear about sharing information,\u201d Sudo-Marra said. \u201cAnd we\u2019ve learned especially with Asian workers, even though numbers showed that there were those affected from all over \u2014 they just were not coming out.\u201d<\/p>\n

Sudo-Marra discussed how the topic of unemployment assistance may go under the radar in broader conversations on rebuilding after the L.A. fires.<\/p>\n

\u201cI think small businesses do get attention\u2026even though we understand that those small businesses are comprised of workers, I don\u2019t know that there\u2019s as much light shed on [individual workers],\u201d Sudo-Marra said. \u201cJust as I was going through my daily life, I had to remind people of disaster unemployment assistance, EDD and benefits. Most people didn\u2019t even know about it.\u201d<\/p>\n

Through the report, Mannino said that he hopes workers and business owners can understand the significant support unemployment systems can provide. For policymakers, he said they should reach out to communities where effects of the fires have spread outside of directly-affected areas.<\/p>\n

\u201cReaching out to affected areas with information about the disaster unemployment assistance program, about unemployment insurance, even about any information that\u2019s available on how to apply if documents have been lost \u2014 this sort of information would be extremely valuable to communicate to the public,\u201d Mannino said.<\/p>\n

Camelia Heins is a Southern California freelance writer.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Unemployment insurance claims increased by 12% to 17% in Los Angeles County after the Palisades and Eaton fires…\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":186561,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5123],"tags":[21053,1582,276,5810,2961,224,6080,5337,50,52],"class_list":{"0":"post-186560","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-los-angeles","8":"tag-altadena","9":"tag-ca","10":"tag-california","11":"tag-eaton-fire","12":"tag-la","13":"tag-los-angeles","14":"tag-los-angeles-county","15":"tag-losangeles","16":"tag-news","17":"tag-top-stories"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@us\/115116202227373361","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/186560","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=186560"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/186560\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/186561"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=186560"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=186560"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=186560"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}