As we’ve noted previously, COVID-19 has revealed the critical role that immigrants play in fields that the pandemic has underscored are essential to the health of our nation, particularly in healthcare, and in the food supply chain.
But many immigrants and people of color work in low wage jobs that are particularly vulnerable to the impacts of the COVID-19 shut-downs. Restaurant workers, hotel staff, office cleaners, etc. all have faced job losses. And immigrants in essential jobs also often must choose between staying home if they feel their workplace is unsafe/unhealthy, or working and taking the chance of being infected with COVID-19 in order to keep a roof over their heads or feed their families.
As a result, immigrants disproportionately bear both the health and the economic impacts of the pandemic, nationally, and in Maine.
Here are some resources to learn more:
Bangor Daily News: Black Mainers are getting the coronavirus more than 10 times the rate of white Mainers, May 24, 2020
Migration Policy Institute: COVID-19 and Unemployment: Assessing the Early Fallout for Immigrants and Other U.S. Workers, June 2020
Pew Research Center: Financial and health impacts of COVID-19 vary widely by race and ethnicity, May 2020
Urban Institute: Hispanic Adults in Families with Noncitizens Disproportionately Feel the Economic Fallout From COVID-19 , May 2020
Urban Institute: How COVID-19 Is Affecting Black and Latino Families’ Employment and Financial Well-Being, May 2020