Minority workers bear brunt of COVID impact

ILEPI-UIUC study finds African Americans, Hispanics, Asian Americans caught in bind, forced to work risky jobs when they didn’t lose employment entirely

A nurse takes off an N95 mask after a long shift dealing with COVID-19 patients. (Shutterstock)

By Ted Cox

A new study finds that minority workers across Illinois were caught in a bind in the coronavirus crisis, either forced to work risky essential jobs or highly more likely to have lost employment in industries prone to being shut down.

“The Effects of the Global Pandemic on Illinois Workers” was released Thursday by the Illinois Economic Policy Institute and the Project for Middle Class Renewal at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. Dividing workers into three categories in the COVID-19 pandemic — essential, face-to-face, and remote employees — it found that the essential and face-to-face employees who were most likely to feel the impact of the state’s efforts to contain the COVID-19 pandemic in the first place also were paid less, were more likely to lose their jobs, and were more likely to be people of color.

“Considered through the lens of these broad workforce categories, the COVID-19 pandemic has revealed a range of structural economic and public health inequities,” said study co-author and ILEPI Policy Director Frank Manzo IV. “The lowest-paid workers — including both face-to-face and essential workers who have kept our state running — are those suffering from the highest risk of infection, job loss, and loss of health insurance.”

Essential employees actually made up the majority of Illinois workers, 51 percent, and the demographic breakdown of those in the category closely resembled the state population. Industries considered essential ranged from public safety, health care services, and public sector operations to food production, delivery services, construction, utilities, and certain types of manufacturing. According to the study, they were “mainly outside Chicago,” and were much more likely to be union members — 22 percent against the statewide average of 14 percent.

But even they were apt to lose employment, with the jobless rate in that sector reported at 12.5 percent last month, compared with 3.3 percent a year ago. And there was a wide disparity between professionals like doctors, nurses, police officers, and firefighters and other frontline workers like delivery drivers and grocery clerks, with a quarter of workers in that sector earning less than $15 an hour.

Face-to-face employees had it even worse, however, confronted with the double bind of being more likely to have their jobs shut down — as in restaurants, bars, hair salons, and arts and entertainment businesses — and more likely of infection if they managed to keep their jobs. They constituted more than a quarter of state workers, 27 percent, but more than a third were unemployed as of last month, 34.6 percent, up from 4.5 percent a year ago.

They had the lowest average hourly wage, $20.50, with 44.4 percent earning less than $15 an hour. That sector had the highest percentage of women, 49.3 percent, and the highest percentage of African Americans, Hispanics, and Asian Americans combined, 40.5 percent.

By contrast, employees capable of working remotely were of course less likely to loose their jobs, with unemployment rising to just 6.5 percent from 2.3 percent a year ago, and were the best paid, at $35 an hour. They were also overwhelmingly white, 73 percent, against the statewide average of 66 percent. Their fields included “high-paying management, financial, and legal sectors of the economy,” the study stated — privileged positions to begin with. But they were also credited with keeping the economy going as well as it has even in its wounded state.

According to the study, women and Hispanics faced the biggest spikes in unemployment, and with that the most dire consequences of losing their employer-provided health coverage in a pandemic.

“Due to the surge of unemployment claims during this pandemic, upwards of 545,000 Illinois workers likely lost their employer-sponsored health insurance,” said study co-author Robert Bruno, UIUC professor and director of the Project for Middle Class Renewal. “And our report estimates that nine out of every 10 of these newly uninsured Illinois residents were face-to-face and essential workers who have been most at risk of being exposed to COVID-19 on the job in the first place.”

The study concluded: “The COVID-19 pandemic has revealed a range of structural economic and public health inequities. On the one hand, the lowest-paid workers — higher shares of whom are women and people of color — are generally at the highest risk of becoming infected, unemployed, and uninsured. On the other hand, many middle-class workers have kept the economy functioning. By bringing new recognition to the value of and challenges faced by both essential and face-to-face workers, the state’s response to COVID-19 may also offer a policy roadmap that can enable Illinois to create a post-pandemic future that protects workers’ rights and rebuilds the middle class.” It laid out a number of policy changes to address the inequities, “including hazard pay for face-to-face workers, paid sick- and parental-leave laws, an expansion of collective-bargaining rights to include independent contractors and gig-economy workers, and a public health-care option to ensure access to coverage for newly unemployed and economically vulnerable workers.”