Tracking the COVID-19 Recession’s Effects on Food, Housing, and Employment Hardships

Joblessness remains high and millions report that their households did not get enough to eat or are not caught up on rent payments. CBPP has been able to track the extent of this hardship thanks to nearly real-time data from several sources on the unfolding economic crisis. The impacts of the pandemic and the economic fallout have been widespread, but are particularly prevalent among Black, Latino, Indigenous, and immigrant households. These disproportionate impacts reflect harsh, longstanding inequities — often stemming from structural racism — in education, employment, housing, and health care that the current crisis is exacerbating. The American Rescue Plan Act, is projected to dramatically begin reducing poverty and narrowing disparities by race. Any reduction in hardship, particularly among children, would be a hopeful step for the country. Households with children face especially high hardship rates and considerable evidence suggests that reducing childhood hardship and poverty would yield improvements in education and health, higher productivity and earnings, less incarceration, and other lasting benefits to children and society. #covid-19 #economy #housing #foodsecurity #racialequity #edcuation