Income and Economic Standing of WoC

The lack of equity in income and wealth shapes the way women of color can respond to social and financial crises, sometimes escalating minor financial setbacks into an array of economic hardships which make a recovery difficult. Women of color are, unfortunately, at the center of economic inequality and most in need of paid leave and wage increases.

The COVID-19 pandemic set back workforce gains made among women of color. For instance, from 2008 to 2018, Latinas’ share of the labor force increased 1.8%. They were projected to comprise 9.2% of the labor force by 2028. Thus, the she-recession is particularly worrisome, as it has likely jeopardized momentum made by women and women of color over the past decade.

Industry Concentrations 

Women make up 64% of the low-paying workforce, representing about 14 million out of the 22 million people who work in the 40 lowest paying jobs, often receiving less than $12 an hour. Black, Latina and immigrant women are over-represented in low-paid jobs. Black women comprise 6.3% of the overall workforce but 9.7% of workers in low-paid jobs. Latina women comprise 7.7% of the overall workforce but 16% of the low-paid workforce, and immigrant women have similar representations. Women of color are also overrepresented in “essential” yet low-wage service jobs

. These are also jobs that lack protections and benefits to mitigate the pandemic’s social and financial impacts. Even when working full time, more than 40% of Latinas, Native American and Black women had household incomes below the poverty line. Job layoffs, business closures and reduced hours due to COVID-related closures likely worsened their preexisting low incomes. 

Paid Leave & Wage Increases are Imperative to Women of Color

Approximately 67% of Black mothers, 43% of Latina mothers and 43% of Asian American and Pacific Islander (AAPI) mothers are breadwinners for their families, meaning they earn at least half of their total household income. They are also more likely to be single heads of families:

20.5% of Black households and 14.3% of Hispanic households were led by a single mother. For comparison, 5.9% of White households were led by a single mother. As substantial providers for their families, these working mothers need livable wages to provide for themselves and their families. The federal minimum wage

currently stands at $7.25 per hour. For tipped workers, the subminimum wage standard is $2.13 per hour. Women essential workers make up 23% of all workers making under $15 an hour. The proposed Raise the Wage Act of 2021 would raise wages for 32 million workers; 59% of those who would see wage increases are women. 23% of those workers are Black women or Latinas. 

Reskilling of workers will also be important in the post-COVID landscape. Pre-COVID, about 11% of Hispanic and Black women were underemployed — meaning part-time workers who were willing and able to work full-time. 

Women of color are more likely to be breadwinners and single heads of families. Yet, 62% of Black adults and 73% of Latino adults could not afford to take unpaid leave under the federal Family and Medical Leave Act. Despite a majority of Americans supporting paid family and medical leave, only 20% of private industry workers and 26% of state and local government workers have access to it. Paid leave is needed more than ever, as children have been forced into homeschooling, and households of color are working in jobs with a higher risk of COVID-19 exposure. 

Households of color are also more likely to be multigenerational, resulting in more caregiving responsibilities for both children and elderly family members. Cross-national studies of paid leave policies have found that paid parental leave with long durations results in a smaller maternal wage penalty. Paid leave facilitates workforce attachment, promotes greater use of health services, and improves child and maternal health outcomes by allowing mothers the proper time and care to heal from childbirth and childcare in general. 

Over the past few decades, women of color have made substantial gains in the overall economy, in addition to playing a significant caregiving role to their families and in their communities. Pre-pandemic, the country was due for change in its minimum wage and paid leave policies. The COVID-induced recession’s stark impacts on America’s working women — especially working women of color — means there is no better time than now to address these issues.

Sally Sim is a NCRC Race, Wealth and Community research consultant.

Jamie Buell is NCRC’s Racial Economic Equity Coordinator.

Photo by Steven Cleghorn on Unsplash

How is your stress level? Are you feeling anxious? If you answered pretty high or yes, you are not alone. 

The pandemic’s impact on mental health is significant and well-documented. Worry about contracting the virus, loss of loved ones, isolation, sustained disruption in our daily activities, income loss, job loss, etc. have had individual and combined impact – resulting in increased stress and symptoms of anxiety and depression among the general U.S. population. 

A Kaiser Family Foundation (KFF) dashboard drawing on analysis of its own polling as well as others such as the CDC’s Household Pulse Surveys led by the National Center for Health Statistics and the U.S. Census Bureau throughout the pandemic, revealed that 35% to 42% of respondents reported symptoms of anxiety (such as feeling nervous, on edge or unable to stop worrying) or depression (such as feeling hopeless, down or having little interest or pleasure in doing things). For comparison purposes, pre-pandemic responses to the same questions showed only 11% of respondents reporting symptoms of anxiety and depression.

The data shows that the increase in mental health distress has been particularly pronounced among a few groups:  communities of color, women, all adults ages 18 to 29, essential workers, those who have lost jobs or income, and parents. 

Looking at the pandemic’s impact on women, in particular, the gap between the percent of women and the percent of men reporting mental health distress (55% of all women compared to 38% of all men) widens with additional stressors. For example, women with children report stress and symptoms of anxiety and depression at higher rates than men with children (58% of women with children compared to 32% of men with children). The reasons for this gap are unclear. It may be that women – particularly women of color – have been impacted by job loss and furloughs at significantly higher rates than men. It may be that women have borne the brunt of family and home care responsibilities while simultaneously attending to work responsibilities. It may be that stigma and gendered social norms make men less likely to seek help for mental health distress.

Considering compounding stressors within the female-identifying population, it is important to point out the role of combined stressors and uneven impact on mental health among women. For example, women ages 18 to 29 report negative mental health impacts resulting from COVID-19 at higher rates (69%) than women ages 65 and older (36%). Women with children have reported these same symptoms at higher rates than women without children (49% compared to 40%). Standing at the intersection of COVID’s disproportionate impact in terms of diagnoses and deaths, job loss and furloughs, caregiving responsibilities, as well as the ongoing trauma of racism, women of color continue to bear a disproportionate burden of stress. 

Access to mental health services

The increase in reported stress, anxiety and depression symptoms corresponds with an increased demand for mental health services. This has put a strain on our already-limited mental health care infrastructure. Among survey respondents who have reported a need for mental health services or medication, 32% have not gotten them. Reasons for not accessing mental health services include: inability to find a provider, affordability, time constraints, insurance coverage for treatment, and embarrassment. 

Impact of prolonged stress: The connection between mental and physical health

Stress impacts everyone at various points in their lives. It often ebbs and flows, and/or can be managed with self-care practices. However, prolonged periods of stress, or chronic stress, can result in a long-term drain or wear-and-tear on the body as the body’s nervous system remains in a state of high alert over a long period of time. 

We have already seen the increase in reported symptoms of anxiety and depression, substance use, changes in sleep patterns and weight gain. While we do not yet know what COVID-19’s long-term mental health impact will be, we do know that people living with prolonged exposure to stress are disproportionately impacted with chronic conditions such as diabetes, hypertension, and cardiovascular disease.

The impact of COVID-19 on our mental health combined with limited access to mental health services thus presents a significant concern well beyond our mental health and wellbeing. 

Strengthening our Mental Health Care Infrastructure

There are great examples showing how community investment in mental health services can strengthen the wellbeing of communities in clear and direct ways. Drawing on these and prioritizing communities disproportionately impacted by COVID-19, opportunities to increase access to mental health services include:

• Financing and other support to expand capacity and/or establish access to telehealth services among mental health care providers that reflect the needs of the communities they intend to serve;
• Financing to support community health centers that provide integrated primary and behavioral health; and 
• Advocacy to support continued coverage of mental health services, including coverage for mental health services delivered via telehealth that reflect the cost of care provided. 

We do not yet know what the long-term effects of the COVID-19 pandemic will be. We do know that, left untreated, the mental health distress that many of us are experiencing now can have ripple effects that impact mental and physical wellbeing years into the future. Opportunities abound to strengthen support systems to meet growing demands on a mental health care infrastructure that needs tending. Alongside other investments and supports for economic rebound and inclusion, investments in community assets and mental health services in communities disproportionately impacted by COVID-19 holds potential to pay dividends well beyond financial return.

Christina Miller, MSS, is an experienced nonprofit public health and social services leader. She currently works as an independent consultant serving business and nonprofit partners that seek to address health inequities.

Photo by Anh Nguyen on Unsplash

It’s impossible to listen to stories of people like Colorado mother, former hospice worker, current waitress and nursing student-turned-paid leave activist, April Kimbrough, and believe that care policies like paid family and medical leave are anything other than foundational.

Kimbrough recently spoke at a convening hosted by New America’s Better Life Lab and A Better Balance and explained that, last year, her 23-year old son, Da’Corey, a Georgia resident, was diagnosed with a rare kidney cancer and COVID-19. When Kimbrough went to Georgia to care for him, she worked remotely, never missing a shift. But, soon, she encountered an ultimatum from her employer: Return to Colorado to work, or lose your job. Kimbrough returned, but “within a couple of weeks, I ultimately lost my job. By losing my job, I lost my apartment. By losing my apartment, I was forced into my car for one month.”

Let that sink in: Kimbrough’s inability to access paid family and medical leave meant she lost her home. Kimbrough explained that she found work as a waitress, which allowed her more flexibility to care for her son in Georgia and finish nursing school in Colorado, but that flexibility came at a price: the loss of stable income, benefits and insurance.

If Kimbrough had paid family and medical leave, she could have cared for her son without losing her job or jeopardizing her livelihood, housing, benefits and insurance. She would have had the foundation she needed to provide care to her son. Her hospice employer would not have lost a trained care worker in the middle of a pandemic. The economy wouldn’t have lost the value of her labor as a result of her losing her job.

Kimbrough turned to activism. Now, thanks to her and other activists, small business owners and 57% of Colorado’s voters including those in “red” counties who voted “yes” on Proposition 118 last November, Colorado workers will soon have near-universal access to 12 weeks of paid family and medical leave. Beginning in 2024, Colorado will join eight other states and the District of Columbia in creating and administering paid leave benefits for workers who need to care for a seriously ill loved one, themselves or a new child. Still, workers in the other 40 states are left behind.

There are millions of April Kimbroughs in the United States today. Black women like April are especially hard hit

 by a double-bind: working in jobs that pay low wages and lack paid leave benefits while also shouldering a disproportionate share of caregiving needs.

But access to paid family leave among workers of all genders, races, ethnicities, regions and ideologies is rare. Just 20% of workers in the private sector had access to paid family leave through their jobs in March 2020 just as the pandemic hit, and for workers in low-wage occupations, access was much lower at 5%. Access to personal medical leave through an employer’s temporary disability insurance policy reached only two-in-five workers overall and fewer than one-in-five low-wage workers. The unpaid, job-protected leave provided through the Family and Medical Leave Act of 1993 (FMLA) reaches fewer than six-in-ten workers and its tenure and hours-worked requirements mean people of color are disproportionately excluded.

Like Kimbrough, without paid leave or the job protection provided by the FMLA, workers lose jobs, lose homes and can’t afford to cover basic expenses. According to the Economic Policy Institute, just 4.5 days away from work without pay for a lower-wage worker jeopardizes their ability to buy food for their family for a full month; 13.1 days away from work without pay jeopardizes their ability to pay for housing and utilities.

Job loss is even more devastating, especially in the midst of a pandemic. Unemployment

 rates have remained high, especially for Black and Latinx workers and especially for women. It is notable that, after the Great Recession, it took Black women until 2018 to recover, according to U.S. Department of Labor Chief Economist Janelle Jones, and now all gains have been lost. The racial and gender wealth gaps, particularly for Black women relative to White men, means low or no savings to fall back on in times of economic strain and hardship and difficulty ensuring economic security for the future.

As the United States builds back from COVID-19, policymakers must invest in policies the country’s workers needed long ago to help support parents, family caregivers and all working people – especially women, women of color, and people who work in lower-wage jobs that do not offer benefits.

Fortunately, the Biden-Harris administration – which has prioritized racial justice, gender justice and health equity – has included a national paid family and medical leave program in its American Families Plan. The chairman of the powerful House of Representatives Committee on Ways and Means, Rep. Richard Neal, has also released his own paid family and medical leave draft legislation following a powerful hearing called, In Their Own Words: Paid Leave, Child Care and an Economy that Failed Women. The two plans offer comprehensive protections to workers and families across the country and build on the FAMILY Act, which has been introduced and championed in Congress by Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand, Representative Rosa DeLauro and more than two hundred of their congressional colleagues for years.

As Congress addresses the policies the country needs to create an inclusive and just economy, paid leave must be part of the care infrastructure the country builds. A federal paid leave program should be guided by lessons about benefits, coverage and funding from states, ensuring access for all working people no matter where they live or work, their serious family or personal medical or care needs or the job they hold. Paid leave sits at the heart of all that people hold dear, because – like April Kimbrough – no one should be forced to choose between a home, a job, insurance and pay and answering the emergency call of a loved one in need.

Vicki Shabo is the Senior Fellow for Paid Leave Policy and Strategy, Better Life Lab at New America.

COVID-19 has had an undeniably detrimental impact on both the health and economic landscape of the United States; however, one of the most troubling effects of the pandemic is its disproportionate impact on women of color. Making up nearly one-third of the front-line workforce, Black and Brown women have been vital contributors to their families and communities, suffering greater exposure to COVID-19 while simultaneously continuing to endure the burden of persistent racism, sexism and other forms of bias and discrimination. 

Recent evidence suggests that the syndemic of COVID-19 and systemic racism has exacerbated racial maternal health disparities and has specifically worsened Black maternal health. In the first six months of the pandemic alone, Black women experienced a

2.3-year drop in life expectancy. Prior to the pandemic, Black mothers were 3-4 times more likely to die from pregnancy-related causes than White mothers. While data is not yet available, maternal health disparities are expected to worsen as a result of COVID-19.

Applying a Racial Equity Lens to Address Maternal Health Disparities 

The devastating impact of COVID-19 on mothers of color calls for a holistic and multi-faceted policy approach that centers the intersectionality of women of color. In addition to facing long-standing maternal health disparities, this community has been burdened by trauma from having their health needs ignored as well as a history of unethical medical experimentation. These experiences with systemic racism will only exacerbate the deleterious impacts of COVID-19 on maternal health outcomes.

These contextual factors heighten the impact of “weathering,” further undermining the quality of life of mothers of color. In the past, policy responses have failed to account for this community’s unique socioeconomic and health care context. This has resulted in a “vicious cycle” of macro-level policies built on already rampant inequities that further perpetuate poor maternal health outcomes.

To avoid this “vicious cycle,” economic justice advocates and policymakers must take a new approach, applying an intersectional, racial equity lens as they develop and implement inclusive policy solutions.

What Can Economic Justice Advocates Ask From Congress? Support legislation to address racial disparities in maternal health outcomes

Earlier this year, Representative Lauren Underwood (D-IL) and Senator Cory Booker (D-NJ) introduced the Black Maternal Health Momnibus Act of 2021, a series of 12 separate pieces of legislation to address every dimension of the maternal health crisis in the U.S. The legislation includes policy solutions spanning health care access and coverage, data collection, workforce development and payment issues. We urge you to add your support to both the overarching Momnibus Act, as well as each of the 12 individual bills that are contained in it. Last fall, in our Response to the Senate Finance Committee’s Request For Information on Solutions to Improve Maternal Health, Families USA identified several policy recommendations we support to address health disparities among mothers and birthing people of color. Many of these recommendations are part of the Momnibus Act. Our three leading priorities are:

• Ensuring women have access to Medicaid throughout their pregnancy and for at least 12 months postpartum: Congress must permanently extend Medicaid coverage for all postpartum women for at least 12 months after giving birth with increased FMAP at 100% for the first five years, reduced to 90% thereafter (Relevant legislation: HR 4996; Families First Coronavirus Response Act)
• Expanding the culturally responsive workforce: Congress must expand Medicaid to ensure coverage for services provided by community-based doulas, perinatal community health workers, and other peer support service providers. (Relevant legislation: Title XIX of Social Security Act; S 1343; S 1600; HR 2602; HR 2751; HR 3344; HR 6142) 
• Increasing access to community-based services and supports to help women thrive in their lived environment: 
  • Congress must promote and fund community-based, community-led perinatal care programs, particularly those led by Black and Indigenous women that have shown promising outcomes on reducing racial and ethnic disparities. (Relevant legislation: Black Maternal Health Momnibus Act of 2021) 
  • Congress must make home visiting a mandatory Medicaid benefit
  • The disproportionate impact of COVID-19 coupled with the enduring stress of structural racism has presented mothers of color with a challenging landscape to navigate. The solution to the maternal health crisis in America lies in creating equitable conditions in which mothers of color can thrive. Now, more than ever, it is time for economic justice advocates to underscore the multiple impacts of COVID-19 and structural racism on women of color and hold policymakers accountable to take immediate action to achieve equity in maternal health care.

Raashmi Krishnasamy is the Health Equity Intern at Families USA. In this role, she assists in the development of strategic policy priorities and leveraging of partnerships to advance health equity and reduce health disparities in outcomes, health care access, and quality. 

Lisa Shapiro is the Senior Advisor for Strategy and Children’s Policy at Families USA. Lisa oversees strategy, policy, partner relationships, and organizational issues. 

Photo by Mustafa Omar on Unsplash

Understanding the distinct consumer needs of different consumer segments is fundamental to engaging with individuals who experience financial vulnerability and stigma as they approach a post-pandemic financial recovery. Organizations can help to play an important role in supporting customers with their personal financial recovery.

We recently examined the experiences of vulnerable communities in banking deserts. We worked with a credit union that focused on providing services for consumers in a banking desert, which are vulnerable communities that have inadequate or no access to mainstream banks. In two field experiments, we compared credit union customers living in a banking desert to customers who do not live in a banking desert. We found that customers living in a banking desert sought different types of benefits from the credit union: these consumers expressed more interest in patronizing the credit union when they perceived it to offer a communal financial orientation, where building a relationship with the credit union would benefit not only the individual but also their broader community. The findings not only provide novel insights into psychological mechanisms distinctly associated with banking-desert consumers; they also point to a win-win for underserved communities and financial service providers because it helps both improve financial inclusion and increase the viability of serving banking deserts.

In another project, we uncovered the effects of potential stigmas related to illness on customers’ willingness to engage with a firm’s online support community. In two field experiments, we found that consumers who had characteristics that could be potentially stigmatized (e.g., HIV/AIDS) were reluctant to engage with the firm (and seek out beneficial services), unless they were given cues that signaled benevolent intentions from the firm, such as the presence of other consumers who share the stigma.

Synthesizing these insights could help point to implications for women during their journey to a COVID-19 financial recovery. Various studies have shown that women are disproportionately affected by the COVID-19 pandemic, including by increases in family and childcare responsibility, and increases in job loss. For example, women who are no longer in the workforce and face challenges covering day-to-day expenses may anticipate stigmatization. For example, the scarcity of not having money to purchase food for one’s family can be both an immediate stressor and a source of potential stigma. This may be exacerbated for women living in lower-income areas

that lack access to mainstream financial services, and for women of color. The aforementioned research suggests several implications for organizations to consider as they work to support and provide services to women during their financial recovery: 

• Consumers living in banking deserts are concerned about their own financial well-being and the well-being of their broader community. Organizations that can develop offerings that not only support financial recovery of the individual customer, but also help build a more sustainable infrastructure for their broader community may experience higher customer engagement rates. 
• Various widely experienced challenges may contribute to fears of stigmatization (food insecurity, income reduction, job loss). Organizations can work to understand potential sources of stigmatizing attributes, and recruit others from a shared community to support financial recovery efforts.
• Individuals anticipating stigma may be hyper-vigilant in search of cues that signal the presence of others facing similar circumstances, as a path to avoiding social devaluation. Organizations that explicitly communicate benevolent messaging and offer a safe space for women in similar contexts to support each other can help lead to greater customer engagement. 

Dr. Maura Scott is the Persis E. Rockwood Professor of Marketing at Florida State University’s College of Business (Ph.D. Arizona State University, M.S. and B.S. Purdue University). Dr. Scott is Joint Editor-in-Chief of the Journal of Public Policy & Marketing (JPP&M). Dr. Scott is the President-Elect Designate for the American Marketing Association’s Academic Council. She also serves on the Board of Directors for the Association for Consumer Research (ACR), as the Industry Perspectives Director.

Martin Mende is Professor of Marketing and the Jim Moran Professor of Business Administration at Florida State University. His research focuses on consumer-based strategy and transformative service research and has appeared in the Journal of Marketing Research, Journal of the Academy of Marketing Science, Journal of Consumer Psychology, Journal of Service Research, Journal of Public Policy & Marketing, Journal of Interactive Marketing, and others. Dr. Mende serves as Area Editor for the Journal of the Academy of Marketing Science, Associate Editor for the Journal of Service Research, Associate Editor for the Journal of Public Policy & Marketing, and on multiple Editorial Review Boards (e.g., Journal of Marketing). Dr. Mende has taught classes such as Marketing Strategy, Service Marketing, and Retailing. At FSU, he has won college-wide and university-wide teaching awards.

Photo by Christina @ wocintechchat.com

on Unsplash

Low-income women of color in America bear the weight of racism, sexism and classism – both in their interactions with other people, and more insidiously, baked into the nation’s policies, systems and cultural assumptions.  

As Sally Sim and Dedrick Asante-Muhammad noted in the post that launched this series, these women were left in the most precarious positions to deal with the pandemic. Day-to-day disruptions turned into severe crises due to the nation’s lack of supportive policies (a higher minimum wage, guaranteed paid sick/family medical/maternity leave, and universal healthcare, among others), systemic discrimination and disenfranchisement, devaluing of their work (often in the service industry or providing care to the elderly, children and other family members). Those are jobs that can’t be done remotely in a pandemic. 

Reversing these systemic injustices and supporting these women will not be accomplished by any one silver bullet. A combination of shifts in policies, systems, environments and culture is necessary. One piece of this puzzle that is currently being explored in small pockets across the country is giving low-income residents direct, recurring cash payments – no strings attached and no questions asked. These guaranteed income programs – unlike universal basic income – are targeted to low-income populations, including sometimes specifically low-income women or low-income women of color. They are not intended to replace the existing safety net, but rather supplement it. 

With interest in such approaches piqued by Andrew Yang’s advocacy for universal basic income in the 2020 Democratic primaries, and further by the stresses of the pandemic, the U.S. is seeing a proliferation of guaranteed income pilot programs, at least 11 across the country. These efforts are fueled by a growing group of nonprofit organizations, city leaders (in particular, the Mayors for a Guaranteed Income coalition) and philanthropists. 

One such program, The Magnolia Mother’s Trust

in Jackson Mississippi, is led by the nonprofit organization

Springboard to Opportunities. Springboard has been providing supportive services to families living in affordable housing since 2013, and began their guaranteed income pilot in December 2018. The program provides participants $1,000 cash each month for 12 months and is the first such program to target extremely low-income families headed by an African American female living in affordable housing in the United States. The program provided payments to 20 women in its first year and 110 in its second year. 

“About 95% of that population [of families in affordable housing] is Black mothers,” said Sarah Stripp, program manager of The Magnolia Mother’s Trust. “That overrepresentation of this one community is on its own enough to show that these women have been pushed into low-wage jobs that do not provide enough money for their family to survive, let alone thrive, or participate in any wealth-building activities.” 

Springboard prioritizes listening directly to the families they work with, employing a range of community conversations, one-on-one conversations and focus groups to provide the basis for the organization’s programming and strategies, from development through implementation and evaluation. It is through these conversations that they heard again and again from mothers that they did not need another program or voucher, with the associated hoops to jump through, but rather cash. 

“Our current, punitive welfare system is riddled with paternalistic measures, such as work requirements and required parenting classes, based on false assumptions that so often surround low-income women and especially Black women,” said Stripp. “We wanted to create a program instead that was built on trust and dignity. We trusted our mothers when they told us what they needed was cash, and we trust them to be the experts on their own lives, knowing how to spend the money to best care for their families and meet their needs.” 

This combination of cash, trust and dignity may be a vital piece of the puzzle in providing low-income women of color a lifeline – out of the current crisis of the pandemic as well as the longstanding crises brought about by decades of unjust policies, systems and cultural assumptions. 

Vinu Ilakkuvan is passionate about supporting and strengthening multi-sector community efforts to address the upstream, root drivers of health. Through her consulting practice, PoP Health, LLC, Vinu provides a range of consulting services (including in the areas of community collaboration, research, and communication) in this space. Vinu holds a DrPH in Health Behavior and a MS in Health Communications, and teaches and advises thesis students at George Washington University’s Milken Institute School of Public Health. 

Photo by Leighann Blackwood on Unsplash

Our care systems, deeply rooted in racial and gender inequities for those providing paid and unpaid care work, are in need of an overhaul. For unpaid family caregivers and the direct care workforce, the majority of whom are Black, Indigenous and people of color (BIPOC) women, revamping and reinvesting in our crumbling caregiving infrastructure means prioritizing home and community-based services, enacting a national paid family and medical leave policy, and ensuring care jobs are good jobs by providing training, education and a living wage for the direct care workforce. 

We are in the midst of a long-term care crisis. The population of adults aged 65 and older will double over the next 40 years, and as this population increases, so too will their care needs. Older adults who need care may not be able to afford the out-of-pocket cost of receiving care. Private insurance may be out of reach and programs like Medicare and Medicaid are simply not enough, at times requiring older adults to impoverish themselves in order to qualify. What COVID-19 has done is made it abundantly clear that our current system of care and long-term care is unaffordable and unsustainable for many and especially for families who are BIPOC. 

But the need for care will continue as will the reliance on who can provide that care; pushing many to depend on the unpaid labor and financial support of primary family caregivers and on the paid labor of direct care workers. Paying for care in congregate settings like nursing homes and adult day centers are unattainable for many families. In 2020, the annual cost of a semi-private room in a nursing home was $105,850 while the cost of assisted living facilities was $51,600. Families struggle to pay for care and often utilize a combination of savings, retirement or pension funds, or the proceeds from selling their home, to make ends meet. Barring available and affordable home and community-based services, it’s an impractical situation and as a result family caregivers take on the bulk of providing care for their loved ones. More than 34 million unpaid family caregivers are caring for family and friends over the age of 50, and a large portion are doing so without proper support or services in place. 

Family caregivers face physical, emotional and financial impacts of providing care both in the short and long term. According to a recent report by AARP, caregivers report experiencing financial strains, citing the effects caregiving has on their ability to save now and for their retirement in addition to the accumulation of further debt. As the pandemic continues, families of color are being hit hard and women, who traditionally take on the responsibility of caregiving, are having to make the impossible choice between caring for themselves or a loved one and remaining in the workforce. Since the start of the pandemic, 2.1 million women have left the workforce and in December 154,000 Black women left the labor force. While the reasons for Black women and women of color leaving the workforce vary, what is clear is the profound impact having to care for a young child, an older loved one and/or support a family member with a disability has had on their ability to perform at pre-COVID-19 levels and maintain steady employment without having workplace support and policies in place that address the underlying issues and disparities Black women and women of color face. 

Workplace policies like paid family and medical leave and paid sick days are vital for caregivers, for women and women of color in the workforce who are simultaneously caring for their families and others. It is also imperative for direct care workers, a sector of the healthcare labor force that is in high demand, yet these essential workers are undervalued and underpaid. Eighty-six percent of the direct care workforce is female and over half, 59%, are people of color who provide assistance to older adults and individuals with disabilities. As the number of family caregivers dwindles and the demand for care increases, we rely on this workforce to assist those with complex care needs, to assist with activities of daily living (ADLs) and instrumental activities of daily living (IADLs). 

The poor quality of care jobs, low pay and little to no benefits, training or upward mobility, leaves this sector with low retention rates and high turnover. It also places the financial stability of direct care workers in peril, the majority of whom are BIPOC. As it stands, 53% of Black care workers

rely on some form of public assistance compared to 34% of Black immigrant care workers and 38% of White care workers. Coupled with disparities in wages and yearly earnings according to demographic characteristics like race and ethnicity, Black direct care workers may be forced to leave the field altogether.  

There is a workforce shortage and in order to ensure the growing care demands are met, we need policies and solutions that make care jobs good jobs. We need significant investments in our care systems and in our direct care workforce and it starts by valuing the work and valuing the workers. It’s time to care about the ones providing the care so they don’t drift further into poverty. Establishing national paid family and medical leave and increasing wages is a good start point, as is recognizing the inequalities Black care workers encounter which places them at a disadvantage relative to their White counterparts. 

To support BIPOC women in our care systems, we need to re-envision how we view care while acknowledging the systemic barriers and disadvantages they encounter as paid care workers and unpaid family caregivers and center their narratives when reconstructing our systems of care. We need significant investments in building up our communities and people so BIPOC have access to affordable healthcare and services that would allow them to age with dignity and care for themselves and their families.

Namatie Mansaray is a former Senior Policy and Government Affairs Manager at Caring Across Generations and incoming Senior Director with the Workplace Justice Campaign Team at MomsRising.

Photo by Andrae Ricketts on Unsplash

. See more here.

In 2014, I forked over $3,000 every month, which was more than my monthly mortgage payment, for “full-time” weekday child care for my two children. The cost was, and still is, astounding to me, but also not uncommon given the lack of child care in communities across the country. 

Equally astounding was the fact that the caring, patient and talented early childhood educators that cared for my young children five days a week for up to 10 hours a day could not afford to make ends meet on their salary. While the daycare center we selected offered job benefits and better pay than competitors, the fact was that many of the women who worked at the center could never afford to send their own children there. The system felt fragile back then — for parents working to afford the high cost of child care and for child care workers whose hard work resulted in high turnover rates and poverty-level pay. 

Fast-forward to 2021. One year into the coronavirus pandemic and today’s child care industry is as fragile as ever. If you thought affordable child care was a scarcity before March 2020 (and it was, child care deserts tend to be found all over the U.S. especially in low-income and rural communities), the coronavirus pandemic has certainly made matters much worse. 

Having access to affordable child care is essential to having labor force participation from women, who, due to sexist societal and traditional gender roles combined with lower wages than men, struggle between workforce participation or the care and education of their children. When COVID-19 emerged and lockdowns and closures were required in the name of public health, that was the beginning of a record labor force exodus for women. An estimated 700,000 parents, predominantly women, are no longer in the workforce due to a loss of child care and significant job losses in women-centered employment sectors. 

It’s not just parents. Hundreds of thousands of child care workers lost their jobs when centers and in-home businesses had to close. A staggering 370,000+ jobs in the child care sector were lost at the beginning of the pandemic, and 95% of those jobs lost belonged to women. Child care workers are part of the essential workforce and jobs have begun to creep back, but are still nowhere near pre-pandemic levels. 

Given the feminization of the early childhood education profession, the majority of child care workers are women. Women of color and immigrant women comprise 94% of those in the child care workforce. Pay averages for the profession is $11.65 per hour, with disparities by race. For example, Black women experience a 78 cent racial wage hourly gap in early child care. In preschool, that gap widens to $1.71 less per hour than White preschool educators with similar work background and experience. Given the critical importance of what they do for parents and the essential skills needed to care for young children, the fact that women who make up the child care workforce earn near or below poverty wages, is a fact that reeks of sexism, racism and classism. 

In March 2021, the American Rescue Plan Act was signed into law, providing $1.9 trillion in COVID-19 relief, including funds to both support the child care industry and parents’ ability to afford care via the expansion of the Child Tax Credit. This new legislation increased the tax credit to $3000 per child, or $3600 per child under 6 years of age, and expanded eligibility to 27 million new children (children who were not previously eligible). That includes nearly half of all Black and Latino children. However, this expansion is temporary, concluding after 12 months. Making the expanded Child Tax Credit a permanent legislative fixture will undoubtedly lift millions of children out of poverty. 

While major policy changes are needed to overhaul the nation’s child care infrastructure, including reducing costs to families, looking ahead, greater engagement and investment by municipalities and the community economic development sector can alter the child care landscape. 

Gender-inclusive planning

Municipality leaders need to continually apply a gendered intersectional lens to all planning decisions. Much criticism has been leveled at local government’s deprioritized efforts at child care, given traditional norms and expectations of women as primary caregivers. More and more municipalities need to join the movement to create gender-inclusive and women-friendly cities. Human services planning is just as integral to the function of communities as traditional, nuts and bolts infrastructure. Let’s prioritize child care as critical local infrastructure in the same way we prioritize highways and power grids. 

Empowered local decision-making

Municipalities should be encouraged to negotiate with private developers and offer incentives for them to include child care facilities in plans within all areas — new construction and reuse in residential, mixed-use, commercial and office areas. Remove zoning barriers to child care programs. Community Development Blocks Grants tend to be stretched in most communities, but they can be allocated to child care development (as a public facility). 

Child care revolving loan funds

Like housing trust funds that establish revolving loan funds for affordable housing, states can dedicate funds to a child care revolving loan fund capitalized in a similar fashion to housing trust funds (e.g. general obligation bonds, tax set-asides, general appropriations, and/or state lotteries). The funds could be used for acquisition, renovation or repair of child care facilities.

CDFIs as partners

CDFIs lend to child care centers and can attract traditional lenders to partner with early education child care providers through the Community Reinvestment Act (CRA) as an incentive for those community development activities that serve low- to moderate-income families, underserved areas and support small businesses. CDFIs generally have the potential to offer training and technical assistance, which optimally helps child care operators make good use of credit and other resources. 

Livable Wages

Child care work is a salient profession that supports parents, specifically women, in the labor force. It’s also a low-wage occupation. Workers are predominantly women of color and immigrant women. They deserve to be paid living wages. Increasing the minimum wage would narrow the wage gap.

If we are going to build back better from this past year, women must be front and center of that recovery. The child care industry and its workforce should be prioritized. 

Karen Kali is a Senior Program Manager with NCRC.

**Add your voice: Let’s talk about all the ways the pandemic has impacted women, and the possible solutions. Share your thoughts, concerns, hopes and ideas in the Just Economy Forum or on our Jamboard. Discussion in the Just Economy Forum is limited to NCRC and Just Economy Club members. The Jamboard is open to the public.**

Photo by BBC Creative on Unsplash

A year after the coronavirus became a pandemic, nearly 3 million women have left the workplace because of child care and other responsibilities, resulting in what is being labeled the nation’s first she-recession. How many of these women will return to the workforce, and in what capacity is a big unknown. A portion will likely turn to entrepreneurship with its potential to be more flexible with child care to pay their bills, and, if they are successful, as a wealth-building tool.

Since 2014, there has been a steady increase in women entrepreneurs, with almost 13 million women-owned small businesses in 2019. Black women own 21% of all women-owned businesses.

But entrepreneurship is not a successful venture without the right tools. One of these tools is access to credit – the money needed to start a business, expand or deal with ebbs and flows in revenue.

Access to credit needs to be available to all as required under the Equal Credit Opportunity Act (ECOA). ECOA makes it illegal for a creditor to discriminate against someone based on gender, race or another protected class. Over the past year, this has not been true for women entrepreneurs, especially for Black female entrepreneurs.

In April 2020, in response to the pandemic’s economic effects, Congress created a new forgivable lending program called the Paycheck Protection Program (PPP). NCRC conducted mystery shopping of the small business pre-application experience from April 27 – May 29 in Washington, D.C., and July 27- August 7 in Los Angeles.

In Washington, D.C., we found that men were informed significantly more often about a PPP loan product than women at the beginning of the second round of PPP funding.^[1] This information asymmetry in D.C. put women business owners at a disadvantage.

Examining the data in Los Angeles just based on gender, the reverse occurred. Women received significantly more information about a PPP loan product than men during the last two weeks that the second round of PPP program funding was available. A deeper dive into the data revealed that Black women received statistically significantly less PPP information compared to White and Latino women. There was no statistical difference in PPP information provided to White and Latino women.  This results in Los Angeles may have occurred because there was still a significant amount of PPP funding available at the end of the two weeks, and financial institutions were trying to originate additional loans, deciding then to focus on women but not on all women.

The percentage of women who received information about a PPP loan in the tests was the same in both cities. This means that about 68% of the women testers were not told about a PPP product. This female percentage of non-information about a PPP product aligns with the low number of women-owned businesses that received PPP loans. Of the 1.1 million PPP loan applications that contained demographic information, 25% of these loans went to women-owned businesses. This low number of originations to women-owned businesses is not an equal distribution compared to the number of women-owned small businesses eligible for this product. Being shut out from programs like PPP harmed women entrepreneurs.

The statistically significant lower rates of access to PPP product information to women testers is a potential fair lending violation. Financial institutions and regulators need to conduct file reviews to ensure that financial institution practices did not result in disparate treatment between equally qualified borrowers. Women entrepreneurs cannot be successful, and entrepreneurship won’t be a successful pathway to bring women back to the workforce, if barriers to credit continue.

**We know a few conference sessions and blog posts are not enough to talk about all the ways the pandemic has impacted women, and the possible solutions. Share your thoughts, concerns, hopes and ideas in the Just Economy Forum or on our Jamboard. While discussion in the Just Economy Forum is limited to NCRC and Just Club members, Jamboard is open to the public.**

[1] We found no statistical difference in information between White and Black women.

Anneliese Lederer is NCRC’s Director of Fair Lending.

Photo by Lidia Vi on Unsplash

Overrepresentation in consumer-facing jobs, poverty and lack of wealth are all aspects that put women of color in high levels of physical and financial danger during the COVID-19 pandemic. 

The hospitality, childcare, leisure, retail and food service industries are oversaturated by women of color, and pose significant pandemic risks. First, these are jobs that can’t be done remotely. Second, many of the workers in these job occupations are unable to afford to take time off, and paid sick leave isn’t guaranteed in the United States. Along with paid sick leave, the inadequacies in policy in the United States have left other social safety nets, such as insurance, family medical leave and benefits out of reach for many in low-paying, consumer-facing jobs. These industries are taking the biggest pandemic-related losses through lay-offs, cut hours and efforts to social distance, resulting in increased financial instability and mass unemployment that has disproportionately affected women of color. 

Poverty intensifies the impacts of COVID-19. Women of all racial and ethnic backgrounds are more likely to live in poverty than White, non-Hispanic males, but this is especially true for women of color. In 2015, 23.1% of Black women lived in poverty, compared to 9.6% of White women and 7.1% of White men. The social and economic consequences of the COVID-19 pandemic have significantly more potential to disrupt and overwhelm the lives of those in or close to poverty. Lack of access to social safety nets, inability to afford high medical costs and lack of resources to prepare and protect against the coronavirus put these communities at higher danger for not only contracting the virus but also sustaining the most financial damage and health risks. 

On the same coin as poverty, the gendered and racialized wealth divide further aggravates the social and economic effects of COVID-19 among women of color. A family’s ability to accumulate and grow capital, whether that be through their income or other assets such as a home, retirement plans or stocks, plays a major role in how they can react to disruptions or crises in their lives. Having money in the bank may be the difference between a doctor’s visit being a mild inconvenience or a severe financial setback, that in turn has its own set of consequences. In general, women have less wealth than men, but this disparity worsens with consideration of race. According to a 2015 study, the median wealth of single White men was $28,900, compared to $15,640 for single White women. But the median wealth for single Black women was only $200, and for single Latina women, $100. In these cases, people of color and women of color, in particular, do not have the financial standing to withstand one financial crisis, let alone multiple. And in the COVID-19 pandemic, social and economic crises are ample, whether it be a doctor’s visit, a layoff, reduced hours or the need to stay home to take care of a loved one or oneself. 

The COVID-19 pandemic was an unexpected development in 2020, but its social and economic effects on women of color were not. Through a history of institutional discrimination and disenfranchisement, women of color were left in the most precarious positions to deal with the global pandemic. Their overrepresentation in the low-paying, consumer-facing market leaves little room for them to access social safety nets, simultaneously, those industries are seeing severe layoffs and cut hours. Additionally, high rates of poverty and the gendered and racialized wealth divide heighten the weight of day-to-day disruptions during the pandemic, turning what would otherwise be mild inconveniences into severe crises with a series of setbacks. Implementing a raise in the national minimum wage and guaranteeing resources such as paid sick leave, family medical leave, paid maternity leave and universal healthcare, in addition to a systemic investment in women of color, is needed now more than ever as this community continues to face the brunt of the pandemic.

Sally Sim in a research consultant for NCRC’s Race, Wealth and Community team, and a recent graduate from the University of California, Santa Cruz.

Dedrick Asante-Muhammad is NCRC’s Chief of Race, Wealth and Community.

Photo by Max Bender on Unsplash