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* Bloomberg…
The end of 2020 brought the sharpest rise in the U.S. poverty rate since the 1960s, according to a study released Monday.
Economists Bruce Meyer, from the University of Chicago, and James Sullivan of the University of Notre Dame found that the poverty rate increased by 2.4 percentage points during the latter half of 2020 as the U.S. continued to suffer the economic impacts from Covid-19.
That percentage-point rise is nearly double the largest annual increase in poverty since the 1960s. This means an additional 8 million people nationwide are now considered poor. Moreover, the poverty rate for Black Americans is estimated to have jumped by 5.4 percentage points, or by 2.4 million individuals.
The scholars’ findings put the rate at 11.8% in December. While poverty is down from readings of more than 15% a decade earlier, the new estimates suggest that the annual Census Bureau tally due in September will be higher than the last official, pre-pandemic level of 10.5% in 2019.
* And to add insult to injury…
Doctors, nurses and other health care workers have taken on great risks in caring for patients sick with the coronavirus. But a new study from researchers at the University of California, San Francisco, suggests that workers in other essential fields are even more likely to die from COVID-19.
The researchers analyzed excess deaths among working-age Californians from March to October 2020, and compared the death rates by occupation to previous years. The data showed that workers in agriculture, food processing facilities, warehouses, call centers and other essential businesses all died at a higher rate than the average worker.
Among the job categories with the highest “risk ratios for mortality” were cooks, farmworkers, construction laborers and shipping clerks. Food workers, in particular, saw a sharp rise in excess death during California’s first stay-at-home phase last spring, while workers in nonessential fields did not.
In general, essential workers outside health care have faced a 20% greater chance of dying during the pandemic than previously, and a 40% greater chance during the first two months of California’s reopening last year, the authors found. They wrote that their analysis was among the first to show non-medical essential work as “a predictor of pandemic-related mortality.”
* Related…
* Governors’ shutdowns did not cause the pandemic jobs crisis - People started staying at home before the shutdowns were ordered, data shows
posted by Rich Miller
Tuesday, Jan 26, 21 @ 12:37 pm
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Months ago, when some of us warned of outcomes like this if the legislature failed to pass a massive, robust relief package, we were told “howegunpayforit?”
One way or another, we paid for it anyway.
Comment by Quibbler Tuesday, Jan 26, 21 @ 12:54 pm
It won’t only be deaths that will have a potential long-term impact on poverty going forward, but the impacts of long-haul impacts to some people who do not die but also do not fully recover from COVID-19.
https://www.healthline.com/health-news/long-haul-covid-19-may-be-a-public-health-crisis-after-the-pandemic#Why-are-long-haul-COVID-19-patients-often-overlooked?
Comment by Anon221 Tuesday, Jan 26, 21 @ 12:55 pm
== Months ago, when some of us warned of outcomes like this if the legislature failed to pass a massive, robust relief package, we were told “howegunpayforit?” ==
Funny how the same people never ask that question when it’s time to give more tax cuts to billionaires and corporations, isn’t it?
Comment by Northsider Tuesday, Jan 26, 21 @ 5:12 pm