CHN’S COVID-19 Watch: Tracking Hardship June 5

June 5, 2020

June 5, 2020

Needless death afflicts this nation. As racism caused the deaths of George Floyd, Breonna Taylor, Ahmaud Arbery and so many others, so are death, sickness, and hardship from the pandemic disproportionately inflicted by race. Black Americans are dying from COVID-19 at more than twice the rate of Whites. Blacks and Latinx are more likely to be unemployed, more likely to go without food, and more likely to be unable to pay rent. With levels of joblessness far higher than during the Great Recession, and those without jobs far more likely to be uninsured, federal solutions and investments remain essential. The Senate must join the House in enacting COVID recovery legislation similar to the House’s HEROES act.

108,278/ 1.87 million

Number of confirmed deaths/cases in the US, as of 6/5 from John Hopkins University. Click to tweet.

54.6 vs. 22.7

Deaths from COVID-19 per 100,000: (Based on data available in 40 states plus D.C., through May 19: Black: 54.6; White: 22.7; Latinx, 24.9; Asian, 24.3. Navajo Nation, deaths rose from 140 to 259 people from May 27 to June 3. Tweet this.

61%, 56%, 46%, 43%

Households in which someone lost employment income since March 13 (through week ending May 26):

Respectively, for Latinx, Black, Asian, White households. Tweet this.

13.3%; 9.6%

Unemployment rate for May, for individuals: 13.3% (down from 14.7% in April)

Highest unemployment rate for Great Recession: 9.6%

For Blacks: 16.8%
For Latinx: 17.6%
For Whites: 12.4%
For Asians: 15%
For Youth, 16-19: 29.9% Tweet this.

21%, 16%, or 6%

Percentage of people who sometimes or often did not have enough to eat in the past 7 days:

Black (21%)
Hispanic/Latinx (16%)
White (6%)

Tweet this.

More than 3.5 times

People in households where someone lost income from work were more than 3.5x as likely to be uninsured as people in households where no one lost work income (13% vs. 3.7%, week ending May 26). Tweet this.

More than one-quarter

26% of Black households did not pay or deferred rent in April. Latinx: 20.6%; Whites: 11.8%; Asians: 10.5%. Tweet this.

One-third

33.2% of Black workers in frontline industries live in near-poor families (below twice the poverty line), compared to 17.3% of frontline White workers. Tweet this.

$35 billion vs. $640

Jeff Bezos of Amazon gained $35 billion from March 18 – May 19. Two months of $2/hr. hazard pay to Amazon workers = $640 (gross). Total cost of hazard pay = $800m. Tweet this.

Zero

Starting June 1, Amazon ended its $2/hour hazard pay increase. Tweet this.

Down 1.535 million;
2X the Great Recession

Loss of state and local government jobs from March to May, of which close to 1 million were in education.

That’s twice the job loss (750,000) from the Great Recession. Tweet this.

Nearly two-thirds

By 64% to 36%, voters oppose giving guaranteed immunity to companies from lawsuits in cases involving coronavirus infection. Tweet this.