Marissa Peterson quit her job as a bartender in Durham, North Carolina, in June, after she was sexually assaulted by a customer and felt management didn’t do enough to keep her assailant from returning to the establishment.

Her decision, Peterson said, was informed by time she spent at home during the pandemic, after being laid off from another job. Extended pandemic unemployment insurance gave her, for the first time in her adult life, space from work and time to consider her relationship with it. READ MORE