IN HARM’S WAY

IN HARM’S WAY

https://economicrt.org/publication/in-harms-way/

 

A recent report by Daniel Fleming and Patrick Burns for the Economic Roundtable describes the workers and industries most at risk from the Covid 19 disease and the resulting recession. 27 million Americans are now collecting unemployment insurance; 50,000 have already died, and 878,000 have confirmed Covid 19, and likely 30-50 times more are or have been infected.

 

The workers at highest risk of unemployment are in the following industries: food preparation and serving, personal care and service, building cleaning and maintenance, installation, maintenance and repair, construction, airlines and travel, apparel, retail and production. Industries at lowest risk of unemployment include: lawyers, farmers and fishermen, police and fire, office and administrative support, finance, community and social services, architects and engineers, public administration. The burdens of unemployment rest most heavily on young adults, Latinos, hotel, restaurant, personal care and janitorial workers. 46% of all Californians are at high risk of unemployment.

 

Half of California workers have jobs requiring them to be in close contact with others. Those at highest risk are health care, personal care and services, police, fire and other protective service workers. Those at lowest risk include lawyers, finance, architects and engineers, computers and mathematics, business operations and life, physical and social scientists. Industries at highest risk are retail trade, restaurants and bars, health care, social assistance and educational services. While industries at low risk include: farming, IT, wholesale trade and manufacturing plus professional, scientific and technical sectors.

 

4% of California workers are exposed to disease and infection daily and another 4% at least once a week. Health care, and protective care like fire and police are those individuals at greatest risk of exposure to disease and infection.

 

17% of California workers are “essential workers” engaged in services like public health and safety. They include agriculture and fishing, police and fire, health care, transportation and warehousing of goods, internet and other computer and mathematical occupations.

 

Half of all workers with incomes above 500% of the Federal Poverty Level have the ability to work from home as compared to 14-15% of workers with incomes below 200% of FPL. Individuals working in building, cleaning and maintenance, construction, agriculture, food preparation and serving, health care, personal care, transportation and police, fire and other protective services have no ability to work from home. By contrast individuals working in law, finances, computers, architects, engineers, the life, physical and social sciences have nearly unlimited ability to work from home.

 

Over two thirds of California workers work for a for profit, 11% are self-employed, 6% work for a non-profit, 8% for local governments, 4% for state government and 2% for federal government. Their benefits provisions for laid off workers are highly variable.

 

Half of all California workers work in occupations with a high or very high risk of unemployment: sales, transportation and moving, food preparation and serving, production, construction, personal care, building cleaning and maintenance, arts and entertainment and installation, maintenance and repair.

 

The risks of unemployment are highest (45% or more) in Southern California counties and less high (35% or so) in the Bay Area counties. California’s unemployed, particularly its gig workers and self employed, are having a hard time getting the expanded UI benefits under the CARES Act due to the overload of new applications and the slow federal guidance to states on implementing the expanded eligibility for gig workers and the self employed. 

 

California has over 940,000 employers; over 800,000 have 20 employees or fewer. In the first round of CARES Act loans and grants for small employers, California’s small businesses and their employees notably ended up on the short end of the stick. https://www.cpapracticeadvisor.com/small-business/news/21134380/chart-shows-which-states-received-the-most-ppp-loans?fbclid=IwAR2AOwZic96fX0bMU84hNZMgU7e35B27FidWtKawoArSYj1QD_w-6lh0iQk It is up to California’s banks, small business leaders and political leaders to take action to correct this imbalance quickly before all the funds are allotted to other states’ small employers.

 

Prepared by: Lucien Wulsin

Dated: 4/24/20

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Checking in from LA

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