Updated HEROES Act Includes Mixed-Earner Unemployment Benefit

Dear Member,

Thank you for your engagement and strong support of the unemployment benefit enhancements in the new HEROES Act. Thanks to your voices, the updated HEROES Act includes, for the first time, benefits for those who derive their income from a variety of sources, as many performers do. The new mixed-earner section is a recognition that mixed earners have been unintentionally harmed by the administration of the CARES Act and that Congress must provide a remedy

The act’s provisions will give much-needed aid to individuals who have received unequal unemployment benefits because they earn a combination of W-2 and 1099/self-employment income.

Under this proposed remedy, a mixed earner who earned $5,000 or more in self-employment income in 2019, as reported on their tax return, and is receiving traditional state unemployment, will receive an additional $125 a week in benefits going forward.

As grateful as we are that the HEROES Act takes mixed earners into account, we are not done fighting. As future relief packages are debated in Washington, D.C., we will be asking for a higher figure and for retroactivity to account for the more than 28 weeks that mixed earners have received unequal pandemic benefits.

We also thank you for your fight to extend the $600 Federal Pandemic Unemployment Compensation supplement and the Pandemic Unemployment Assistance program, a second round of $1,200 stimulus checks, and an additional 13 weeks of unemployment benefits for individuals who will have exhausted their benefits before Jan. 31, 2021.  We urge the Senate and the White House to support these key provisions. The HEROES Act is expected to pass the House of Representatives this week; however, no final deal has been reached..   

Together, we will continue to fight to get the help we need and get the industry booming again.

Strength in unity,

Gabrielle Carteris
SAG-AFTRA President