Unemployment diary: I'm a 29-year-old barista in Washington who's been out of work since March

• The Unemployed States of America takes readers deep inside the decimated American workforce.
• Cameron Workman is a 29-year-old barista based in Seattle, Washington.
• He was laid off on March 25 and is currently studying front-end web development to switch to a less customer-facing career.
• Workman says he's worried about potentially putting his immunocompromised partner at risk by getting a job in food, retail, or customer service.
• This is his story, as told to Business Insider.

Life has been difficult in a lot of ways, and good in some.

The difficult parts involve having no idea what happens next, dealing with the complete lack of leadership and communication from elected officials, both national and local.

I have no idea, especially right now as the expanded benefits have been terminated, how I'm going to get through the next month, what the month after this is going to look like, and if I'm ever going to return to work again.

On a positive note, I luckily have a partner I love very much and get along extremely well with.

Not being constantly on call and not having to get up at 4 a.m. four days a week, and not feeling exhausted by having to put on a mask and do customer service has left me with the time to focus on growing my character, managing my past, and learning to strengthen my relationship with my partner.

I have a lovely and very accommodating therapist who's been fantastic during this time, and it's helped a lot to have all this time and no distractions to really sit with myself.

I still have a sense of dread and anxiety and confusion about very tangible things, like what do I do if the money stops coming? I have no high school diploma — though I do have a GED — and no work history in anything beyond food and retail, where people without masks abound.

I'm currently studying front-end web development as a way to exit customer service and people-facing jobs.

I hope to find something I can do from home, with slightly better pay, in a job environment that receives significantly more respect than what food industry and customer service and retail employees receive.

I only make $109 a week on unemployment without the additional $600.

Luckily, we've had friends help us with things.

We haven't gotten in-state license plates in the two years we've lived here, so we're driving illegally — and that'll continue, because it's $400 to get the car registered.

We haven't bought new clothes in months, except a pair of shorts each, and we have to have constant check-ins to see if we agree that the thing we're purchasing is okay to buy. I'm making sure that anything I do buy has some benefit to me and my future, like books to teach me programming.

Hopefully, we aren't forced into any major life changes beyond cutting back on everything as much as we can.

I'm sitting on my hands and trying to trust that congress fights for me and will have my back.

I have zero faith and fully expect to be forced into looking for anything just to make ends meet in less than two weeks. We can barely make our rent and bills as it was a week ago — now we're f--ked.

And what if I kill my immunocompromised partner by getting sick because someone doesn't want to wear a mask at the grocery store I was forced to get a job at?

Is there any end? Do we ever see the other side of this? Does anyone in our government give a s--- about poor people, or people who worked jobs on tipped wages and made nearly nothing beforehand only to get screwed over by the federal and state government when they need help?