Seeking Benefits in Attack's Aftermath

Sept. 28 -- Eric Carr is happy to be alive. Carr was a former bartender on the night shift at Windows on the World, the famous restaurant that was on the 106th floor of the World Trade Center's north tower.

But now he's faced with another problem — looking for work.

"It's like I'm starting my life all over again, looking in the workforce and everything else," says Carr.

In the aftermath of the attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon, Carr is not alone. Hundreds of thousands of workers are finding themselves without jobs and seeking assistance and benefits from the government to help them through this difficult time.

The New York state Department of Labor has received some 10,800 claims for unemployment insurance related to the attacks on the World Trade Center so far, and expects to have up to 100,000 claims in the next few months, says department spokeswoman Betsy McCormack.

That number includes up to 35,000 claims for disaster unemployment assistance, known as DUA. This type of assistance provides financial relief for people whose employment was lost or interrupted because of a major disaster and who are not eligible for normal unemployment insurance.

Thousands Unemployed

In addition, the U.S. Labor Department says New York state could see 75,000 people who may need to seek dislocated worker assistance, which is employment assistance and aid for workers who have lost their jobs through layoffs or other involuntary causes and are not expected to be called back by their employers.

Besides those physically displaced by the attacks, other industries, such as airlines, hotels and travel agencies, are hurting from the dramatic slowdown in travel. The airline industry so far expects to cut almost 100,000 jobs, while the American Society of Travel Agents fears that more than half of the nation's 300,000 travel agents could be without jobs if the industry doesn't get any assistance.

The final count could run anywhere from several hundred thousand to 1 million people unemployed as a result of the economic slowdown these attacks have precipitated, says Christine Owens, director of public policy for the AFL-CIO.