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Early evidence of the impacts of COVID-19 on minority unemployment()
This paper provides early evidence of the impacts of the COVID-19 pandemic on minority unemployment in the United States. In the first month following March adoptions of social distancing measures by states, unemployment rose to 14.5% but a much higher 24.4% when we correct for potential data miscla...
Autores principales: | , , |
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Formato: | Online Artículo Texto |
Lenguaje: | English |
Publicado: |
Elsevier B.V.
2020
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Materias: | |
Acceso en línea: | https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7489888/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/32952224 http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.jpubeco.2020.104287 |
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author | Couch, Kenneth A. Fairlie, Robert W. Xu, Huanan |
author_facet | Couch, Kenneth A. Fairlie, Robert W. Xu, Huanan |
author_sort | Couch, Kenneth A. |
collection | PubMed |
description | This paper provides early evidence of the impacts of the COVID-19 pandemic on minority unemployment in the United States. In the first month following March adoptions of social distancing measures by states, unemployment rose to 14.5% but a much higher 24.4% when we correct for potential data misclassification noted by the BLS. Using the official definition, unemployment in April 2020 among African-Americans rose by less than what would have been anticipated (to 16.6%) based on previous recessions, and the long-term ordering of unemployment across racial/ethnic groups was altered with Latinx unemployment (18.2%) rising for the first time to the highest among major groups. Difference-in-difference estimates confirm that the initial gap in unemployment between whites and blacks in April was not different than in periods prior to the pandemic; however, the racial gap expanded as unemployment for whites declined in the next two months but was largely stagnant for blacks. The initially large gap in unemployment between whites and Latinx in April was sustained in May and June as unemployment declined similarly for both groups. Non-linear decompositions show a favorable industry distribution partly protected black employment during the early stages of the pandemic, but that an unfavorable occupational distribution and lower average skills levels placed them at higher risk of job losses. An unfavorable occupational distribution and lower skills contributed to a sharply widened Latinx-white unemployment gap that moderated over time as rehiring occurred. These findings of disproportionate impacts on minority unemployment raise important concerns regarding lost earnings and wealth, and longer-term consequences of the pandemic on racial inequality in the United States. |
format | Online Article Text |
id | pubmed-7489888 |
institution | National Center for Biotechnology Information |
language | English |
publishDate | 2020 |
publisher | Elsevier B.V. |
record_format | MEDLINE/PubMed |
spelling | pubmed-74898882020-09-15 Early evidence of the impacts of COVID-19 on minority unemployment() Couch, Kenneth A. Fairlie, Robert W. Xu, Huanan J Public Econ Article This paper provides early evidence of the impacts of the COVID-19 pandemic on minority unemployment in the United States. In the first month following March adoptions of social distancing measures by states, unemployment rose to 14.5% but a much higher 24.4% when we correct for potential data misclassification noted by the BLS. Using the official definition, unemployment in April 2020 among African-Americans rose by less than what would have been anticipated (to 16.6%) based on previous recessions, and the long-term ordering of unemployment across racial/ethnic groups was altered with Latinx unemployment (18.2%) rising for the first time to the highest among major groups. Difference-in-difference estimates confirm that the initial gap in unemployment between whites and blacks in April was not different than in periods prior to the pandemic; however, the racial gap expanded as unemployment for whites declined in the next two months but was largely stagnant for blacks. The initially large gap in unemployment between whites and Latinx in April was sustained in May and June as unemployment declined similarly for both groups. Non-linear decompositions show a favorable industry distribution partly protected black employment during the early stages of the pandemic, but that an unfavorable occupational distribution and lower average skills levels placed them at higher risk of job losses. An unfavorable occupational distribution and lower skills contributed to a sharply widened Latinx-white unemployment gap that moderated over time as rehiring occurred. These findings of disproportionate impacts on minority unemployment raise important concerns regarding lost earnings and wealth, and longer-term consequences of the pandemic on racial inequality in the United States. Elsevier B.V. 2020-12 2020-09-14 /pmc/articles/PMC7489888/ /pubmed/32952224 http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.jpubeco.2020.104287 Text en © 2020 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved. Since January 2020 Elsevier has created a COVID-19 resource centre with free information in English and Mandarin on the novel coronavirus COVID-19. The COVID-19 resource centre is hosted on Elsevier Connect, the company's public news and information website. Elsevier hereby grants permission to make all its COVID-19-related research that is available on the COVID-19 resource centre - including this research content - immediately available in PubMed Central and other publicly funded repositories, such as the WHO COVID database with rights for unrestricted research re-use and analyses in any form or by any means with acknowledgement of the original source. These permissions are granted for free by Elsevier for as long as the COVID-19 resource centre remains active. |
spellingShingle | Article Couch, Kenneth A. Fairlie, Robert W. Xu, Huanan Early evidence of the impacts of COVID-19 on minority unemployment() |
title | Early evidence of the impacts of COVID-19 on minority unemployment() |
title_full | Early evidence of the impacts of COVID-19 on minority unemployment() |
title_fullStr | Early evidence of the impacts of COVID-19 on minority unemployment() |
title_full_unstemmed | Early evidence of the impacts of COVID-19 on minority unemployment() |
title_short | Early evidence of the impacts of COVID-19 on minority unemployment() |
title_sort | early evidence of the impacts of covid-19 on minority unemployment() |
topic | Article |
url | https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7489888/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/32952224 http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.jpubeco.2020.104287 |
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