COVID-19 is affecting businesses and workers worldwide, but low-income and low-wage earners will likely be affected the most from the economic impact of coronavirus. Why? Because workers in industries such as travel, leisure, and hospitality have the lowest access to sick leave.
Just a third of the U.S. workforce is able to work from home. And, according to the Economic Policy Institute (EPI), only 48 percent of workers in the leisure and hospitality industry have access to paid sick leave.
That means sick workers are probably showing up for work and spreading their illness.
More than 32 million lower-income U.S. workers don’t have access to paid sick leave, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics. By comparison, 92 percent of higher-wage earners receive paid sick time. Just 31 percent of workers with salaries in the bottom 10 percent have this benefit, Yahoo reported.
“There’s a lot of occupational segregation in this country,” said Elise Gould, senior economist at the Economic Policy Institute, a Washington, D.C. think tank. “So when we think of those low-wage workers, they’re more likely to be women, Black and Hispanic workers. This could hit some communities more than others.”
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Black workers among the working poor will be harmed the most since Black and Hispanic workers are more than twice as likely to earn poverty-level wages compared to their white counterparts, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics.
“Roughly 8 percent of black and Hispanic workers earn wages below poverty level, compared to just 4 percent of white workers. Women of color struggle in particular: 10 percent of Black women and 9 percent of Hispanic women are classified as the working poor, compared to 3.5 percent of white men,” Yahoo reported.
Many of the workers in low-wage sectors will continue to work when they are sick because they can not afford to take off, Gould said. That means they can spread their illness.
“It’s a little bit of a snowball effect for that population,” she said. “They are more likely to be living paycheck to paycheck, and will have a harder time because they have limited resources.”
Since many of these workers also depend on tips, they will be most affected by shutdowns. “This is highlighting the vast inequality in this country,” Gould said. “And some people are going to get hurt so much more than others. That hurt could be long-lasting. We don’t know. We don’t know what’s going to happen over the course of this virus.”
Earlier this week, Democrats released the Families First Coronavirus Response Act, a bill that would offer food assistance, paid sick leave, and extra funds for unemployment insurance benefits.
“This bill is a critical downpayment on ensuring that families and communities in the direct path of this crisis do not have to choose between following the advice of public health experts and risking their livelihood,” said Fatima Goss Graves, president and CEO of the National Women’s Law Center.
House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy (R-CA) criticized Democrats for the bill. He claimed that their plan is “completely partisan” and “unworkable.”
