The Corona-virus has made social distancing a required task in order to flatten the curve, which has caused a large number of us to lose their jobs as businesses close. According to the U.S Department of Labor, unemployment claims jumped from over 300,000 in the week of March 14 to over 3.3 million in the week of March 21, 2020. By the next week, March 28, it jumped again up to over 6.6 million claims. The number of claims has been so massive that unemployment websites have been glitchy and crashing, causing people to spend multiple hours trying to file their claim. New Paltz resident Elana Durrick had to apply on the NY state unemployment website six times before it finally went through without crashing. She was forced to apply after losing her job as a waitress. The federal government officially passed a bailout plan that will send $1,200 to most American households but the earliest they could arrive is three weeks from the signing of the bill which was March 27, 2020. In the interim, many of us will likely need to find some source of extra income to make sure we can all pay our bills. Here are some potential odd jobs you could do to make money during this pandemic.

From March 14, 2020 to March 28, 2020, Six million people applied for unemployement

Transcribing

Many of us have probably been binging large amounts of shows on Netflix or one of the many other streaming platforms. You may have even been watching a show late into the night now that almost none of us have to wake up in the morning. Since it’s late and you’re not trying to wake anybody up to witness your bad decisions, you turn down the volume and turn on the subtitles to still catch everything that is said. What you may not know is those subtitles are usually still typed in by humans! That’s right, you can essentially get paid to watch Netflix shows….. As long as you write down everything that’s happening. Rev.com is an online company that transcribes audio, video and even does foreign translations for companies like CBS, Viacom and PBS. You can sign up there yourself to become an online transcriber. According to former employee Jaeden Marsh, after a grammar test and a bit of training you’ll be sent a handful of shows to work on. Marsh transcribed a few seasons over 3 months as a side job over the summer between semesters at Dutchess Community College. Occasionally you may also be asked to type out recordings of company’s online or in person meetings. You get paid for each completed minute of audio or video transcription as you go along and then receive more work once you've fully completed what you were sent. Though you will be obligated to sign a non-disclosure agreement, so you can’t tell anyone if you are sent a season of a brand new show. You are going to have to be able to keep a secret for this job!

Being able to make small distinctions like this is a huge help as a transcriberImage from Arrested Development — **Being able to make small distinctions like this is a huge help as a transcriber**
Image from Arrested Development

Rent-a-Gamer

Video games are also a common refuge for the many people who now have loads of time on their hands. Gaming also allows for some human interaction that still follows the social distancing guidelines. But what if you don’t have any friends to play with? Or your pals are all busy taking care of kids or elderly family members? Well then you can either rent a friend from egirl.gg or rent yourself out to play games with lonely people around the world. Egirl.gg is a website where you can charge a couple of dollars, as low as $1 and as high as $25, a match to play games like League of Legends, Overwatch, and Call of Duty with a random internet person willing to pay. What do you need to sign up to be an e-girl? According to the site, to be an e-girl you should, “be a professional player, a gaming enthusiast with a good sense of humor, or a cute girl with a sweet voice. If you can just be yourself and love the game, you will be the right person.” While the website has the word girl in its name, there are actually plenty of men looking for gaming mates or trainees as well. Mike Lasanen is a 31 year old Michigonian who lost his job at a popular tourist destination due to coronavirus. He isn’t eligible for unemployment anymore and says he now always keeps a tab of egirl.gg open to try and make a few extra bucks throughout the day. “It’s not a bad gig. Depending on the rank of the person who requests I can charge more.” Lasanen also said he has a female friend he knows who made $1,000 her first month on the site. For the female gamers, e-girl Mirella from Germany, where the website has also taken off, warns to be careful of customers who are streamers. Some Twitch.tv live streamers may try to hire you and record the interaction. If you don't want to be on stream make sure that is known.

Delivery Apps

It may be a very obvious side job but delivery driving for apps like DoorDash and Postmates have become even more important in our new coronavirus world order. Even before most regular businesses closed, the gig economy was growing. According to CNBC the number of gig workers has grown by six million people in the past 10 years to now be almost 10% of all workers. Contrary to what people may think, many gig economy workers also contain one of the largest portion of elderly workers. Those 55 and older make up over 30% of gig workers. This is of course the group most impacted by corona-virus so many of them will likely stay home. Places like Pizza Mia in Highland,

Restaurants are now restricted to take out and delivery options so ensuring that these kinds of local businesses can still provide food to customers may keep them from closing entirely. There are also older people and those with underlying health issues that may not want to leave their house to get groceries. You could be the person delivering necessities to people’s front door. This job obviously requires you to have a car and be willing to travel but the amount of human interaction involved is low. New social distancing protocols involve picking up food from a drop location and leaving it at a house doorstop, ringing the bell, and leaving. No more knocking on doors to say hello. Ding-dong-dash, formerly a childish prank, is now the status quo for most deliveries. This is a job with slightly higher risk, but there are plenty of financial and moral rewards.

Unemployment and Taxes

As mentioned earlier, many of us have been applying for unemployment benefits by the millions and are expecting a check or direct deposit of bailout money from the government. If you are one of the few people who has not applied for unemployment yet, do so right away. You can use the usa.gov website to look up your state’s unemployment filing procedures. According to Business Insider, the federal government has expanded both the payout amount and the number of scenarios in which you could be eligible for unemployment. For example, if you leave work due to a risk of infection or to care for a family member, you are eligible for unemployment during that time. Normally there would be a one week waiting period after you apply until you could get a check but many states have removed this restriction as well. So make sure you apply. The other thing to do is to make sure you’ve filed your 2019 tax return. The $1200 stimulus checks to every American will be sent out soon, but if you don’t have a direct deposit set up with the IRS, you could be waiting for that check in the mail until July or August. The IRS extended the tax filing date until June 14 and also created this handy website to check if you are eligible for the economic impact payments. If you are a person who does not usually file tax returns, that does not mean you are ineligible for payments. Any non-filers can enter their banking information here and still receive benefits. The money will be sent out in waves, so if someone you know has gotten their refund and you have not yet, don’t worry. As long as you have made sure that the IRS has all of your information, you will get the funds eventually. The IRS will likely be paying out until June or July. And don’t get upset with the IRS if your check isn't there right away. They do, after all, have hundreds of millions of people to process.