http://www.npr.org/sections/health-shots/2021/10/25/1048202711/covid-economic-pain-black-latino-native-american
October 25, 20212:53 PM ET
Laurel Wamsley at NPR headquarters in Washington, D.C., November 7,
2018. (photo by Allison Shelley)
LAUREL WAMSLEY
3-Minute Listen
Download
Los Angeles International Airport and SoFi Stadium employers spoke with >potential job applicants at a job fair in Inglewood, Calif., in
September. About 19% of all households in an NPR poll say they lost all
their savings during the COVID-19 outbreak, and have none to fall back on. >PATRICK T. FALLON/AFP via Getty Images
Jonathan Eta had managed to keep his head above water after he lost his
job as an auto detailer in Southern California at the start of the
pandemic. But last month, the emergency unemployment benefits he relied
on expired.
"Basically, now we're just out on our own, you know?" he says.
Eta, who was born in Honduras, lives in the San Fernando Valley, where
he's a single father to his three school-aged children. The financial
strain he'd staved off for 17 months has arrived. He's now three months >behind on rent for the one-bedroom apartment where the four of them
live, and he's behind on his credit cards and electric bill, too.
"Man, it's just hard to find work, constantly worrying about catching
the virus. You know, my kids have caught it. My mother, too. So it's
really been real, real rocky, you know. I don't know which way to go,"
Eta says.
He's far from the only one feeling that pressure. Thirty-eight percent
of households across the U.S. report facing serious financial problems
over the last few months. That's according to a poll by NPR, the Robert
Wood Johnson Foundation and the Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public
Health. And among Black and Latino households, more than 55% reported
serious financial problems. That's compared with 29% of white households.
Article continues after sponsor message
Impact of the racial wealth gap: "I've got to start all over"
For Eta, the financial strain has made it hard to sleep, and it has
stymied his hopes of moving his family to a bigger place.
"I had some kind of progress going on. Now that's pretty much over with,
so I've got to start all over. And it's just been pretty rough, you
know, to not have any kind of surety of where we're going or when this
is going to be over," he says. The little savings he had are now gone.
That lack of savings is a major factor in the unequal financial toll of
the pandemic.
About 19% of all households say they lost all their savings during the >COVID-19 outbreak, and have none to fall back on. Among Black
households, the number is higher: 31% reported losing all their savings.
And among Latino and Native American families, more than more than a
quarter of households report having depleted their savings.
"The racial wealth gap is real, and one of its most basic manifestations
is not having liquid assets," says William Spriggs, professor of
economics at Howard University and chief economist to the AFL-CIO.
The additional federal aid that expired last month gave people a sense
of security, Spriggs says, so they could continue to consume.
"That's all gone away," he says. "So that is, I think, the number one
reason you saw special stress in Latino and Black households — because >without the boost to the unemployment check, without the stimulus checks >still being there, these households simply don't have the savings to
endure and be resilient during downturns."
"It is incredibly hard"
Melissa is a single mom in Brooklyn. She's asked we only use her first
name because she's ashamed of being unable to provide for her children
and doesn't want it widely known how much she is struggling.
"This has been hell," she says. "I'm trying to survive without a job,
without assistance, with two young children. It is incredibly hard."
When the pandemic started, she was working as a home health aide. But
because she was caring for her kids, checking in on her mother in a
nursing home, and looking after her aunts and uncles, she didn't want to
work directly with COVID-19 patients.
Article continues after sponsor message
"And they didn't want to hear that, so I was forced to take a leave,"
she says.
Around the same time, her wallet was stolen, and with it, the state ID
and social security card she needed to apply for various government >assistance. Getting replacements for those documents has been slow, with >government offices backed up during the pandemic.
When she became eligible for a COVID-19 vaccine earlier this year,
Melissa wasn't able to get the protective shot for underlying health
reasons. But that's raised her ongoing vulnerability to the coronavirus.
Without income, she's leaned on extended family, gone to food pantries
and made the most of her supply of canned goods while she looks for a job.
"I've applied at Target, Kmart, H&M — everything. I've applied
everywhere. And you know, it is difficult with my two children because I >still have to make sure they go to daycare. And without a voucher ...
you're looking at six, seven hundred dollars in daycare a week."
Glimmers of hope
She says the pandemic has erased the life she knew before — when she
could take care of others in her extended family, instead of just
scraping by herself.
But there are glimmers of hope: That underlying health issue has at last >healed, her doctors now tell her, so she should be able to get
vaccinated against the coronavirus, and be able to look for a
better-paying job in health care.
Until then, she says, her kids are what keep her going. "They wake up
every day and look at me like, 'OK, let's go.' They're happy and they
help make me happy. They motivate me."
And soon, she hopes, the whole family can return to some measure of >stability.
MichaelE wrote:
http://www.npr.org/sections/health-shots/2021/10/25/1048202711/covid-economic-pain-black-latino-native-american
October 25, 20212:53 PM ET
Laurel Wamsley at NPR headquarters in Washington, D.C., November 7,
2018. (photo by Allison Shelley)
LAUREL WAMSLEY
3-Minute Listen
Download
Los Angeles International Airport and SoFi Stadium employers spoke with
potential job applicants at a job fair in Inglewood, Calif., in
September. About 19% of all households in an NPR poll say they lost all
their savings during the COVID-19 outbreak, and have none to fall back on. >> PATRICK T. FALLON/AFP via Getty Images
Jonathan Eta had managed to keep his head above water after he lost his
job as an auto detailer in Southern California at the start of the
pandemic. But last month, the emergency unemployment benefits he relied
on expired.
"Basically, now we're just out on our own, you know?" he says.
Eta, who was born in Honduras, lives in the San Fernando Valley, where
he's a single father to his three school-aged children. The financial
strain he'd staved off for 17 months has arrived. He's now three months
behind on rent for the one-bedroom apartment where the four of them
live, and he's behind on his credit cards and electric bill, too.
"Man, it's just hard to find work, constantly worrying about catching
the virus. You know, my kids have caught it. My mother, too. So it's
really been real, real rocky, you know. I don't know which way to go,"
Eta says.
He's far from the only one feeling that pressure. Thirty-eight percent
of households across the U.S. report facing serious financial problems
over the last few months. That's according to a poll by NPR, the Robert
Wood Johnson Foundation and the Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public
Health. And among Black and Latino households, more than 55% reported
serious financial problems. That's compared with 29% of white households.
Article continues after sponsor message
Impact of the racial wealth gap: "I've got to start all over"
For Eta, the financial strain has made it hard to sleep, and it has
stymied his hopes of moving his family to a bigger place.
"I had some kind of progress going on. Now that's pretty much over with,
so I've got to start all over. And it's just been pretty rough, you
know, to not have any kind of surety of where we're going or when this
is going to be over," he says. The little savings he had are now gone.
That lack of savings is a major factor in the unequal financial toll of
the pandemic.
About 19% of all households say they lost all their savings during the
COVID-19 outbreak, and have none to fall back on. Among Black
households, the number is higher: 31% reported losing all their savings.
And among Latino and Native American families, more than more than a
quarter of households report having depleted their savings.
"The racial wealth gap is real, and one of its most basic manifestations
is not having liquid assets," says William Spriggs, professor of
economics at Howard University and chief economist to the AFL-CIO.
The additional federal aid that expired last month gave people a sense
of security, Spriggs says, so they could continue to consume.
"That's all gone away," he says. "So that is, I think, the number one
reason you saw special stress in Latino and Black households — because
without the boost to the unemployment check, without the stimulus checks
still being there, these households simply don't have the savings to
endure and be resilient during downturns."
"It is incredibly hard"
Melissa is a single mom in Brooklyn. She's asked we only use her first
name because she's ashamed of being unable to provide for her children
and doesn't want it widely known how much she is struggling.
"This has been hell," she says. "I'm trying to survive without a job,
without assistance, with two young children. It is incredibly hard."
When the pandemic started, she was working as a home health aide. But
because she was caring for her kids, checking in on her mother in a
nursing home, and looking after her aunts and uncles, she didn't want to
work directly with COVID-19 patients.
Article continues after sponsor message
"And they didn't want to hear that, so I was forced to take a leave,"
she says.
Around the same time, her wallet was stolen, and with it, the state ID
and social security card she needed to apply for various government
assistance. Getting replacements for those documents has been slow, with
government offices backed up during the pandemic.
When she became eligible for a COVID-19 vaccine earlier this year,
Melissa wasn't able to get the protective shot for underlying health
reasons. But that's raised her ongoing vulnerability to the coronavirus.
Without income, she's leaned on extended family, gone to food pantries
and made the most of her supply of canned goods while she looks for a job. >>
"I've applied at Target, Kmart, H&M — everything. I've applied
everywhere. And you know, it is difficult with my two children because I
still have to make sure they go to daycare. And without a voucher ...
you're looking at six, seven hundred dollars in daycare a week."
Glimmers of hope
She says the pandemic has erased the life she knew before — when she
could take care of others in her extended family, instead of just
scraping by herself.
But there are glimmers of hope: That underlying health issue has at last
healed, her doctors now tell her, so she should be able to get
vaccinated against the coronavirus, and be able to look for a
better-paying job in health care.
Until then, she says, her kids are what keep her going. "They wake up
every day and look at me like, 'OK, let's go.' They're happy and they
help make me happy. They motivate me."
And soon, she hopes, the whole family can return to some measure of
stability.
The only *healthy* way to stop the pandemic, thereby saving lives, in
Cali & elsewhere is by rapidly ( http://bit.ly/RapidTestCOVID-19 )
finding out at any given moment, including even while on-line, who
among us are unwittingly contagious (i.e pre-symptomatic or
asymptomatic) in order to http://bit.ly/convince_it_forward (John
15:12) for them to call their doctor and self-quarantine per their
doctor in hopes of stopping this pandemic. Thus, we're hoping for the
best while preparing for the worse-case scenario of the Alpha lineage mutations and others like the Gamma, Beta, Epsilon, Iota, Lambda, Mu &
Delta lineage mutations combining to form hybrids that render current
COVID vaccines/pills no longer effective.
Indeed, I am wonderfully hungry ( http://bit.ly/RapidTestCOVID-19 )
and hope you, Michael, also have a healthy appetite too.
So how are you ?
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