Black workers in Cali hard hit hard due to pandemic

 From the Sacramento Bee:

A new report from the nonpartisan California Policy Lab, obtained by McClatchy Wednesday, illustrates dramatically how Black workers have been hit unusually hard by the coronavirus crisis.

“Black workers are less likely to work in the industries which have weathered the COVID-19 crisis well, and more likely to work in the sectors that COVID has wreaked havoc,” said Till von Wachter, the Lab’s faculty director.

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The Economic Policy Institute, a progressive research firm, studied black unemployment during the pandemic. There are three main groups of workers in the COVID-19 economy, said a report from Elise Gould, a senior economist, and Valerie Wilson, director of the institute’s program on race, ethnicity and the economy.

One group of people has lost their jobs and faces economic insecurity. Another involve people classified as essential workers and face health insecurity as a result. The third can continue working from the safety of their homes.

“Unfortunately, black workers are less likely to be found in the last group,” the researchers found.

Nationwide, Black workers make up over 12% of the labor force, but make up less than 9% of workers in the computer and mathematical occupations, areas where they could likely move to remote work,, and just above 8% of management occupations - one of the sectors most insulated from the crisis.

Blacks have also suffered from the coronavirus at higher rates than whites, so “it’s not unexpected that the (unemployment) numbers are staggering,” said Michael Graetz, a former Treasury Department official and author of The Wolf at the Door: The Menace of Economic Insecurity and How to Fight It.

The Lab found another source of gloom: People are not as optimistic that they can return to their jobs.

h/t Newsalert