Spoke a bit ago to a home office contact and she stated the reason why severance in 2021 will be limited to those impacted with 5 plus years tenure. So many states allow impacted employees to draw unemployment even when receiving severance. Allstate paid out the severance and had to pay their share of impacted employees' unemployment resulting in millions more spent on top of the severance costs. In many states severance is considered a settlement payment of losing your job without cause and not living wages which allows for unemployment also. Some states consider severance wages and hence no unemployment.
The 5 plus year tenured employees make up a far lower proportion of the employee base that even in paying the unemployment on top of the tenure pay severance they will stay within plan. And they can move less than 5 year tenure to positions of high turnover and need to get something if value, labir, in lieu of severance payout.