Annaly Smugman used to have a job at a hotel in Bangor, Maine.

She booked and managed events there.

Award dinners, corporate retreats, small trade shows.

All of the football teams that play at our local large university would stay with us.

And so we had to feed 100 person football teams for a weekend.

Exactly the sort of gatherings that have all but disappeared in the pandemic.

They didn't need me because I couldn't sell anyone anything and I couldn't

manage any events because there weren't events to manage.

And they had to cut costs pretty quickly.

Munkman was furloughed in March, lost her job in June.

Her fiance was laid off from his job too at a local restaurant.

They did okay at first.

Pandemic legislation passed by Congress provided an extra $600 a week in unemployment benefits.

But that ended in July.

So now Munkman is scraping by on $355 a week.

It's been tight.

There have been bills we haven't paid.

We try to keep things like car insurance.

Gas and phone and internet because those things keep allowing us to look for jobs.

And even that reduced unemployment is said to end.

It expires the day after Christmas.

For Munkman and her fiance, that may mean giving up their home of a decade,

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