By mid-May, 27.9 percent of Nevada’s work force had filed for unemployment — not accounting for the undocumented population finding itself out of work.
By mid-May, 27.9 percent of Nevada’s work force had filed for unemployment — not accounting for the undocumented population finding itself out of work.
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When the Casinos Were Shuttered, the Money Dried Up in Las Vegas
ByMarcela ValdesMay 27, 2020
By mid-May, 27.9 percent of Nevada’s work force had filed for unemployment — not accounting for the undocumented population finding itself out of work.
When the Casinos Were Shuttered, the Money Dried Up in Las Vegas
By mid-May, 27.9 percent of Nevada’s work force had filed for unemployment — not accounting for the undocumented population finding itself out of work.
By Marcela Valdes
It took Las Vegas nearly a decade to recover from the subprime-mortgage-market collapse in 2008, but by February of this year, the city was rolling hot again. Unemployment in Nevada was less than 4 percent. ‘‘The economy in Vegas was really chugging along,’’ Karri Kratz, a bartender at the Mirage, told me. ‘‘We were doing great.’’
Then in mid-March, in response to the coronavirus, Gov. Steve Sisolak closed all of Nevada’s nonessential businesses, including casinos. A week later, he banned social gatherings of groups larger than 10. ‘‘I’m used to hearing the fountains and the music and people honking and partying and celebrating,’’ Lorena Peril, a performer in the Luxor’s burlesque show, ‘‘Fantasy,’’ said. ‘‘And now it’s so quiet.’’ She distracted herself from the crisis by staging shows around town out of her pickup truck.
Nearly all of Vegas’s casino employees lost their jobs. But for many of them, the blow was softened by their membership in the Culinary Workers Union, which began negotiating exit packages for its 60,000 casino and hospitality workers even before Sisolak issued his emergency order. The C.W.U. provided its members with health insurance and helped them navigate the glitchy process of filing unemployment claims. Earlier this month, Steven Mnuchin, secretary of the Treasury, said that one in four Americans could soon be out of work. In Nevada, this dark future is already reality. By mid-May, 27.9 percent of its work force had filed for unemployment.
At the current rate of expenditure, the state’s unemployment-insurance fund very likely will run dry by the fall. And even these dismal statistics and projections may be too optimistic, because Nevada until recently discouraged freelancers and gig workers from filing claims while it set up a new website to handle people who file 1099s with the Internal Revenue Service. Economists expect that some hospitality jobs nationwide could soon return, as states and municipalities reopen, but caution around Covid-19 among travelers is likely to depress the industry indefinitely — especially when it comes to conventions and other corporate travel, both mainstays of Las Vegas’s economy.
The current numbers also don’t reflect unemployment in the estimated 7 percent of Nevada’s population that is undocumented, the highest share of any state in the nation. Take H., for example. She and her husband owned a catering business cooking tacos and other Mexican dishes for all kinds of parties in Las Vegas: weddings, birthdays, first communions. ‘‘I’ve even had people who are celebrating their divorce,’’ said H., who requested anonymity because of her immigration status. In January, she realized that if she could pay off her car loan, she could sock away $350 a month toward her first home. To speed the process along, she dipped into her savings to buy a used car that she planned to resell for a profit.
The week before Governor Sisolak banned large social gatherings, H. catered a banquet for 50 people. Afterward, every one of her jobs in the spring and summer — the boom seasons that usually got her through the lean winter months — was canceled. Because her husband also worked full time in their business, their household income dropped to nothing. Their savings had already been depleted. Much of what they had left was parked on the street, but nobody was buying cars anymore — a knock-on effect of the hospitality industry’s dormancy. Nobody wanted to buy anything. H. canceled her children’s birthday party. She negotiated a suspension of her car-loan payments. She spent two weeks in a kind of paralysis, afraid to leave the house, watching her savings shrink.
Because H. and her husband are both undocumented, they will never file for unemployment. Federal stimulus checks, she thinks, are designed to get President Trump re-elected; even American citizens who are married to undocumented immigrants were banned from receiving them. ‘‘For him, people like us — even though we pay taxes, even though we help the economy — well, we’re nobody,’’ she told me. In the weeks after her business collapsed, she had nightmares. She dreamed of rats, of snakes, of falling into an abyss. After one miserable night, she texted her friend Xenia Gomez.
In Vegas, Gomez, who was born in El Salvador, is someone Spanish speakers can call for help when they have nowhere else to turn. Through her Fundación Naciones Unidas Corazón de Plata (United Nations Silver Heart Foundation), she hosts fund-raisers to help people pay for emergencies, like medical treatments or funerals. ‘‘I believe in abundance more than in wealth or money,’’ Gomez explained. ‘‘I can have $20, but if I believe in abundance and I believe in God’s benediction, those $20 can last me long enough to make miracles.’’
In April, Gomez was inundated with calls from friends and strangers. People who spent all their money stocking up on food and toilet paper and baby formula and didn’t have enough left to pay the rent. People who feared their businesses would go bust, but who didn’t want to apply for a small-business loan and wind up mired in debt. People with insomnia, with cabin fever, with suicidal thoughts. She couldn’t do much to help. Her foundation always gave away nearly everything it raised; it didn’t keep money in a bank. And even if the ban on social gatherings were lifted, fund-raising would put everyone at risk. Gomez also had her own worries. She had closed her shop, Botánica La Guadalupana, which sells vitamins and natural remedies as well as candles, incense and religious items, and was surviving on savings and the help of her two children, a medical worker and an Amazon employee.
In better times, H. cooked food for Gomez’s fund-raisers. Now Gomez helped H. think through her situation. Don’t focus on the bills you can’t pay, she suggested. Instead, give thanks for the roof over your head, for the food you can serve to your children. Hunger was already a major problem in southern Nevada. One in eight of the area’s residents was food-insecure even before the pandemic. Three Square, the backbone organization for the region’s emergency food network, distributed approximately one million pounds of food a week, including 18,000 meals a day through the state’s schools. In the wake of the mandatory closures, the amount of food distributed by Three Square shot up by 30 percent to 1.3 million pounds per week, even while distribution points were reduced. Three Square’s chief operating officer, Larry Scott, predicted that food insecurity could remain elevated for years to come.
In April, H. made a batch offlanes, little custards topped with caramelized sugar, and posted the desserts for sale on Facebook. They sold — and a food-delivery business was born. Every week since then, H. has offered something different: chiles filled with meat or cheese, ceviche, buñuelos. She and her husband spend their mornings cooking while their three elementary-school-age children are busy with online classes. They spend their afternoons and nights making deliveries. They wear gloves and face masks. When they return home around 9 p.m., they head straight for the shower. ‘‘Whether or not we feel exposed, I think that right now there’s no other option,’’ she said. ‘‘We just have to go out to do it, because for us there’s no help.’’
On May 10, Nevada allowed some businesses to reopen, requiring only that employees, not customers, wear face masks. Casinos stayed closed, but restaurants could open at 50 percent capacity. Strip clubs, brothels and tattoo parlors remain shuttered. But even if all the casinos reopen tomorrow, H. expects that her hard times will last. ‘‘Many people will be afraid of social events,’’ she said. The party economy may be permanently blighted, and delivering homemade meals is not a permanent solution.
H.’s new business doesn’t earn enough to cover all her family’s bills. Her savings won’t last though the summer. But she and Gomez are still giving thanks. ‘‘God doesn’t abandon us,’’ Gomez told me. ‘‘In the worst case, what we can do is start again from scratch. As long as there’s health and life, it’s possible.’’
Scenes From an Economic Collapse:Glassboro, N.J.Baton Rouge, La.Milwaukee, Wis.Las  Vegas, Nev.Pueblo, Colo.Crete, Neb.San Antonio, Texas
Marcela Valdes is a contributing writer for the magazine. She previously wrote about the musician Rosalía.
