Democratic presidential candidate Joe Biden, the former vice president, arrives for a rally at Tougaloo College in Tougaloo, Mississippi on March 8, 2020. (Photo: Mandel Ngan/AFP via Getty Images) A recent Federal Reserve survey found that one in five people who were working in February lost their job or were furloughed in March or early April. The world has suddenly taken notice of the persons who stock grocery store shelves, work the check-out counters, maintain elevators and facilities, deliver goods, clean hospitals, and a hundred other tasks that are usually taken for granted.
The grim financial difficulties brought on by Covid-19 have hit lower earning workers the hardest. Nearly 40% of former workers living in a household earning $40,000 or less lost work compared to just 13% of those in a household making over $100,000. In addition to the loss of their income, some 12 million Americans have also lost their employer-sponsored health coverage since the onset of Covid-19, making the public health crisis even worse. The coronavirus pandemic has been both an economic crisis and a public health crisis, and the costs of both have fallen heavily on American workers. At the same time, the pandemic has shone […]
Click here to view original web page at www.commondreams.org
