Covid19 is taking a toll on US minorities and women. Here's how a hospital janitor, an Amazon employee and other unsung heroes cope with the frontline
While many were in quarantine, Courtenay Brown had to work throughout the pandemic. File photo taken in Newark, New Jersey on April 28, 2020.
The burden has been borne unevenly across gender, racial and socioeconomic lines, according to an Associated Press analysis of census data in the country’s 100 largest cities. Workers deemed "essential" are also more likely to live below the federal poverty line or hover just above it. They are more likely to have children at home and many live with others who also have frontline jobs.
When the pandemic took hold, Brown plunged into her job as a supervisor in the loading dock to get the $2 hourly pay bump and double overtime. Soon, several of her co-workers became infected. Others, she said, didn’t show up. The virus has killed at least 30 members of the United Food and Commercial Workers International Union. Another 3,000 have either fallen ill or been quarantined for exposure, according to the union, which represents 900,000 people.
Giraldo was raised in Colombia by his grandparents after his father left the war-torn country to work in the fruit groves of California. Giraldo followed in his early 20s, grateful to his father for paving the way but determined to be the kind of parent he never had.As a contract worker, the father of four gets no paid sick leave and relies on California’s state health insurance program.
She just never banked on finding herself working in a pandemic battleground. The hospital now treats Covid-19 patients, and Brown is terrified of going to her $14.70-an-hour job that barely keeps her family above the poverty line.Janitors are the most financially vulnerable front-line workers. In most cities, more than a quarter live below the poverty line. More than 40 percent are foreign-born and 74 percent are people of color.
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