USA TODAY
Covid-19 Hits Black, Hispanic and Low Income Families Harder - Why That Matters
November 3, 2020
Impact on the Country
It has been about 9 months since the first Covid case hit the shores of the United States. About 6 months since the States enacted stay-at-home orders. In the first 3 months of the pandemic, over 100,000 small businesses closed their doors permanently, and 20.5 millions Americans were unemployed. More than the two years of the 2007-2009 Great Recession which was the worst economic recession in the United States. Since then, the country has been leading the world in the number of cases with almost 9 million and deaths with over 228,000. With winter fast approaching, these numbers continue to climb. With these impacts on the country as a whole, How have low income families been impacted by the pandemic?
Impact on Low Income Families
Research from various sources such as the Pew Research Center and the U.S Census Bureau shows that low income families have been impacted heavily. A report from pewsocialtrends.org shows that 44% percent of people in the lower income category have had to take out money from saving and retirement to save bills. 46% of people in the same category have had trouble paying bills while 19% and 5% of people in the middle and upper income categories have had trouble paying bills. The same research shows that 35% of people in the lower income category have had to receive food through a food bank or organizations. While only 12% and 1% of the middle and upper income categories have had to do it. These are only some of the findings in the research. Especially in the pandemic, another major issue is access to medical care. 19% of low income adults are reporting that have had trouble paying for medical care and 7% have lost health insurance. The data is showing that low income adults are behind by many points in many surveys except for some. While some might say that many of these people did not have jobs to begin with, the shows that Covid has affected even low income adults with jobs. The research shows that 33% of lower income adults were laid off, 37%, and 47% experienced both. 56% of laid off adults of the same category were unemployed in August when the survey was conducted. These aren’t the only ways low income families have been hit.
Impact on Education for Low Income Families
Virtual Learning has been tough for every family but is even harder for low income families. One Los Angeles family shown in a NowThis News video called “A Look at Virtual Learning for Low-Income Families”, is having to share one mobile hotspot. The 3 of the siblings in the family have to use it simultaneously for virtual learning. In the video,13 year old Keilly Flores says, “It’s hard because it’s me, my sister and my brother...We usually have videos to watch so it’s hard because, like someone could be using up the internet a lot while, ... [the] Other two are struggling to use it. The mother Anely Solis states “ I don’t have enough to pay for the internet, the only one who works here is my husband,...We don’t make enough to pay...for the internet.
Internet access isn’t the only issue.
Having to share a small space with her siblings, has been challenging for Keilly. She states, “It’s kinda hard because they’re always around...if I have a class, I have to...at least tell them..to go to another room so I could..pay attention. Obtaining laptops was another problem the family ran into at the start of remote learning. The mother states, “I struggled with the schools in order for them to give us laptops, especially with the two boys...when they stopped going to school, my sons connected through my phone. He didn’t have a computer. We just got it today.” As a result, low income students are falling behind. An LA Unified School District survey in July found that low-income households participated in virtual learning at lower rates than students in higher income households. The same survey also found that there is decreased participation among black and hispanic students. There was already a gap in education and wealth between these two groups and other groups before, and the pandemic is most likely contributing to it. The lives of low income families were already tough before the pandemic and got even tougher when it hit the country.
Impact on Income Inequality
Income and wealth inequality has existed long before the pandemic. As Yuval Harari, author of Sapiens: A Brief History of Humankind said, “Despite its proclamation of equality of all men, the imagined order established by the Americans in 1776, also established a hierarchy.” One of the hierarchies he lists is the hierarchy between rich and poor. He states, “The american order also consecrated the hierarchy between rich and poor. Most Americans had little problem with the inequality...in their view, equality meant simply that the same laws applied to rich and poor. It had nothing to do with unemployment benefits, integrated education or health insurance. This is what is clearly happening in modern america. We have groups that fall behind in education and access to healthcare and health insurance. Before the pandemic, the wealth and income inequality in the country had been rising since the 70s. According to Deloitte Insights, The amount of wealth held 10% has increased from 60% to 70% in the last 30 years. At the same time , the wealth owned by the top 1% has gone up from 17% to 26.0%. This means that they own more than a quarter of the wealth of the country, according to the US Federal Reserve. Additionally in 2018, black and hispanic households had a significantly lower median income for households $41,361 and $51,450 and $66,943 and $87,194 for white and asian households. The Poverty rate for blacks and hispanics were also significant with 20.8% and 17.6% compared to asians and whites which are both 10.1%. Lastly, in the same year it was reported that only 55.4% and 49.6% of blacks and hispanics have access to private health insurance, while 69.3% and 73.1% of whites and asians have access to private insurance. These indicate the state of the wealth and income inequality pre-Covid. The lack of access to health insurance and the fact that those two groups hold a larger share of medium and low income occupations turns out to be a deadly combination in the pandemic.
According to the CDC, Black Americans have contracted Covid, 2.6x more than whites and Hispanics have contracted the virus, 2.8x more than whites. In terms of hospitalization, Blacks have been hospitalized 4.7x more than whites and similarly, Hispanics have been hospitalized 4.6x more than whites. Black Americans have also died 2.4x more than whites. This makes sense because The CDC has said that “Race and ethnicity are risk markers for other underlying conditions that impact health — including socioeconomic status, access to health care, and increased exposure to the virus due to occupation”. The same two groups with much lower access to private health insurance are being hospitalized at a significantly higher rate. The same two groups that have a significantly lower median income than other groups are being hit the hardest by the pandemic.
Why This Matters
It has been 9 months since the pandemic began and thousands of Americans are still contracting the virus at high rate and hundreds continue to die everyday. Because of the government’s poor and dysfunctional response, families are hurting more than they have to, especially those who were already hurting before the pandemic.The economy can not go back to normal if families and a major part of the workforce continue to struggle and undergo additional stress as result of job loss and poverty. The country as a whole cannot move forward while a portion of its citizens is still suffering because of the pandemic which is why more needs to be done by the government to control the pandemic, in order to protect the lives of our most vulnerable groups and improve the lives of many.
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