Public Policy Chair Martin Gilens spoke to the Los Angeles Times about Americans’ shifting opinions about government-funded social safety nets. During the health and economic crisis spurred by COVID-19, a wide range of individuals and businesses have benefited from U.S. stimulus spending, and this could shift the national discourse about the role Americans want government to play in their lives. “COVID is such a potentially transformational experience,” Gilens said. While he cautioned that views may change once the economy improves, he noted, “If there is a broader reckoning with the failures of our government, then maybe that will extend to how we deal with inequality and poverty, and we’ll be entertaining something that looks a little more like a European welfare state.”
A New York Times story on the challenges of getting an accurate 2020 census count, particularly among Latino communities, cited Paul Ong, director of the Center for Neighborhood Knowledge at UCLA Luskin. In California, governments and nonprofits have spent $187 million on outreach efforts, but comments from President Trump have made many Latinos wary of the census, the article noted. In addition, the Census Bureau has shortened the window for participating, and COVID-19 has curtailed the activities of census takers. Ong’s research team has found that Latinos nationwide are responding to the census at lower rates than in 2010. By August, the estimated median response rate was 50%, down by nearly 13 percentage points from a decade ago. Among non-Hispanic whites, the estimated response rate was 69%, compared with 71% a decade ago. “We will have a flawed census that will be fatal to certain groups,” Ong said.
The federal government’s decision to exclude undocumented residents from the $1,200 stimulus payments given to taxpayers during the COVID-19 pandemic resulted in a loss of $10 billion in potential economic output, a UCLA study has found. It also cost 82,000 jobs nationally and 17,000 jobs in California, according to the study, a collaboration among UCLA’s Latino Policy and Politics Initiative, North American Integration and Development Center and Institute for Research on Labor and Employment. Undocumented workers and their families contributed more than $1.6 trillion to the nation’s gross domestic product in 2018 through shopping and workforce activities, and their reduced purchasing power amid a looming recession is both a public health and economic crisis, said Raul Hinojosa, an associate professor of Chicano studies and the report’s lead author. “It is cruel to deny undocumented residents financial assistance as unemployment rates skyrocket, but it’s also counterproductive fiscal policy that has negative consequences for all Americans who benefit from their economic contributions,” he said. The national unemployment rate for undocumented workers reached 29% in May, much higher than the rate for any other demographic group. The study found that the economic benefits of including undocumented workers in future relief efforts would outweigh the costs. The economic activity generated by undocumented immigrants spending the tax credits they would receive under the HEROES Act, currently being debated in Congress, would support 112,000 jobs nationally and produce $14 billion in economic output — which would far exceed the $9.5 billion price tag of including them in recovery efforts. — Eliza Moreno
A research brief calling for a coordinated national plan to guide schools as they reopen amid the COVID-19 pandemic, co-authored by Social Welfare Professor Ron Avi Astor, was highlighted on the blog of the Congressional Research Institute for Social Work and Policy. “There is absolute consensus that children need to be in school,” the blog’s author noted. “Tragically, this year countless families and children will experience unimaginable trauma because of all the uncertainty that accompanies a relentless pandemic.” The research brief from social welfare scholars at UCLA, Loyola University Chicago, Cal State Fullerton and Hebrew University identified concerns held by 1,275 school social workers from across the country. “We need a Manhattan Project-style initiative that pulls together all relevant professions — educators, administrators, school psychologists, counselors, social workers, nurses and other health professionals — to create strategic plans for the upcoming school year,” the scholars concluded.
A new study of the magnitude, pattern and causes of COVID-19’s impact on California housing reveals that Black people and Latinos are more than twice as likely as whites to be experiencing rent-related hardships.
The analysis by researchers from the UCLA Center for Neighborhood Knowledge and Ong & Associates, in coordination with the UCLA Luskin Institute on Inequality and Democracy, relies on the U.S. Census Bureau’s weekly Household Pulse Survey, a multiagency effort to collect information on the social and economic effects of COVID-19 on Americans. The research findings are based on pooling a 10-week sample of more than 22,000 adults in California for the period from April 23 to July 7.
During the pandemic, workers, families, businesses and communities have experienced enormous financial difficulties, and the new study estimates that more than 1.9 million adults in California were unable to pay their rent on time in early July. The finding that Black and Latino renters are particularly vulnerable echoes previous analyses showing that minority renters are more likely to be suffering economically during the pandemic.
“These systematic racial or ethnoracial disparities are the product of systemic inequality,” UCLA Luskin research professor Paul Ong writes in the study. “People of color, low-income individuals, and those with less education and skills are most at risk.”
An analysis of the survey responses shows that people of color are disproportionately more concentrated in the lower-income and lower-education brackets, and they entered the crisis with fewer financial and human capital resources. Those people of color who lost their jobs or suffered a significant earnings loss during the pandemic were therefore far more likely to fall behind on rent.
When the researchers looked closely at who was unable to pay rent during the period of study, they found that 23% were Black and 20% were Latino — more than double the 9% for both whites and Asians.
In her foreword to the study, UCLA urban planning professor Ananya Roy, the director of the Luskin Institute on Inequality and Democracy, writes, “An especially important finding of the report is that across socioeconomic status categories, Black and Latinx households are more likely to be unable to pay rent compared to non-Hispanic whites and Asian Americans, a stark reminder of the entrenched racial disparities that are being rearticulated and amplified by the present crisis.”
The researchers delved deeper into the data to compare the experiences of various ethnic and racial groups based on demographic characteristics such as level of education. They found that Black and Latino respondents with some college education had higher rates of nonpayment of rent than whites and Asian Americans with similar educations. Racial disparities were evident even when the researchers focused on employment and earnings categories related to COVID-19.
“In other words,” Ong writes, “the pattern indicates that racial inequality is not due simply to class differences.”
Many experts believe this situation will lead to a wave of evictions in coming months unless governments take steps to protect people who have fallen behind on rent during the crisis. This includes extending the state’s eviction moratorium, continuing supplemental employment benefits and providing financial assistance to offset accumulated rent debt.
In a July 27 webinar hosted by the UCLA Asian American Studies Center, Paul Ong, Ananya Roy and others discuss the potential for mass COVID-19–related evictions in Los Angeles if current tenant protections are not extended.
The researchers did uncover some disparate patterns across ethnoracial groups. For example, the correlation between a lower income and the inability to pay rent was pronounced for both whites and Latinos, but it was minimal, and statistically insignificant, for Asians and Black people. The impact of less education was very pronounced for Black people but only minimally so for the other three groups. The effect of earnings losses was far greater for Black and Latino people than for white and Asian people.
Perhaps most surprising, the researchers said, was the effect of joblessness. While a loss of work led to an increased likelihood of nonpayment of rent among Asian and Latino people, it marginally decreased the odds of rental difficulties among white and Black people.
“One reasonable explanation is disparate access to unemployment insurance,” Ong writes in the study. He noted that Asians and Latinos may have less access to this type of financial relief — which can more than replace lost wages — because many work in informal ethnic job sectors and also face linguistic, cultural and legal barriers to applying for and collecting unemployment benefits.
The study urges elected officials to extend and expand unemployment insurance benefits. The researchers also call for the renewal of temporary tenant protections and say that financial relief should be provided to both renters and landlords.
Overall, the study’s findings show that prepandemic inequalities and pandemic labor-market hardships amplify systemic racial disparities. The economic impact on low-income and minority populations is likely to be long-lasting because so many people will have amassed a huge debt of deferred rents.
“Many will struggle to find meaningful employment in a protracted and uneven economic recovery,” Ong writes. “It is very likely that race will shape who will be most hurt.”
Ong is the director of the Center for Neighborhood Knowledge at the UCLA Luskin School of Public Affairs. He also founded Ong & Associates, an economic and policy analysis consulting firm that specializes in public interest issues and provided services pro bono for this study.
Research by the Center for Neighborhood Knowledge (CNK) at UCLA Luskin continues to shape conversations about justice and equity during the COVID-19 pandemic. The center’s director, Research Professor Paul Ong, shared insights on the multifaceted “web of inequality” underlying systemic racism during a webinar hosted by Los Angeles County Supervisor Mark Ridley-Thomas and covered by the Los Angeles Sentinel and Daily News. “If you think about the fight against racism as a war, you need to understand in greater detail the enemy,” Ong said. His center’s work aims to provide that information “so that we can understand the magnitude of the problems, the patterns of the problems, the trajectory of the problems,” he said. “I think transparency along with democracy is the very critical thing to make sure that institutional changes are implemented.” Recent CNK research has measured the severe economic impact of COVID-19 on communities of color, cited by NBC News and the Washington Post, and investigated the challenges in conducting a fair 2020 Census count, cited by the Los Angeles Times and ABC News Radio.
KPFK’s Background Briefing spoke with Luskin Institute on Inequality and Democracy Director Ananya Roy about the looming threat of mass evictions in Los Angeles and across the country. The vast number of people facing loss of shelter deserve protection but are “up against very loud and powerful political interests that are propertied interests, and that is one reason for the failure at all levels of government to act on this matter,” Roy said. “This is not about a moment of eviction. It is about the long-term remaking of our cities and communities and an ongoing disaster that will last for years to come.” Commenting in the Guardian, Roy said the wave of displacement could make it impossible for officials to ignore tenants. “Mass evictions have always led to mass mobilizations. This moment will lead to an extraordinary housing justice uprising,” she predicted. The institute’s research on evictions has also been cited in Los Angeles magazine, Courthouse News Service and Invisible People.
A New York Times article offering tips for safely riding public transit cited Brian Taylor, professor of urban planning and public policy. Many essential employees who cannot work remotely or don’t drive have continued to ride buses, trains and ferries, the article said. “It is mostly riders without other options who are coming back to public transit so far,” said Taylor, director of UCLA Luskin’s Institute of Transportation Studies, which is studying the effects of the pandemic on public transit ridership, operations and finance. The article advised riders to avoid rush hour, seek open air when possible, stay away from communal surfaces, minimize conversation, keep possessions off the floor and pack hand sanitizer, among other recommendations.
A World Bank blog highlighted research methods used in a study of domestic violence in India that was conducted by Global Lab for Research in Action Director Manisha Shah and researcher Saravana Ravindran. The study found a significant increase in domestic violence and cybercrime complaints in May in Indian districts with the strictest COVID-19 lockdown measures relative to districts with the least strict measures. At the same time, reports of rape and sexual assault declined as people avoided public spaces during the lockdown. “Putting some numbers on a ‘shadow pandemic’ is important for informing policies to address it,” the article said, noting the difficulty of collecting real-time data on such sensitive subjects. “Lockdowns can be an effective way of controlling a pandemic, but they come with costs.”
Associate Professor of Public Policy Sarah Reber co-authored a Brookings article offering policy guidance as the federal government hammers out a relief package to help schools safely resume classes. “Whether schools are open for in-person instruction, for distance learning or use a hybrid approach, they will need federal funding to prevent recession-lengthening layoffs and to support student learning,” Reber and co-author Nora Gordon of Georgetown University wrote. To equitably allocate aid to states, Congress should avoid the Title I formula used to support children in low-income households, they argued. Instead, they laid out alternative formulas that would promote local flexibility, avoid unnecessary strings and minimize confusion. “Whether adopting social distancing protocols for live instruction or developing remote-learning offerings, all schools will face new costs this school year that, without federal support, will undermine their ability to provide a quality education,” they wrote.
