“From Reconstruction, to Jim Crow, to the present day, our economy has never worked fairly for Black Americans -- or, really, for any American of color."

Janet Yellen, Treasury Secretary

It’s not “just” systemic racism that’s helping to divide our country, it is systemic inequality, and the two overlap to the detriment of both the poor and people of color. And we probably don’t need additional studies to illuminate this crisis because the statistics, who might be your family and friends, continue to pile up.

Unfortunately, the best study we could have is the pandemic, which brought inequality into stark relief, particularly in the disparity in deaths from Covid-19 between the white and minority communities. I thought I’d share with you this evening a few articles that attempt to explain this disparity so we can all better understand the problem.

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— First up on the reading list is a rather dense study (OK, maybe we do need another study), published in the Journal of the American Medical Association (JAMA), that explores the correlation between income inequality by county in the U.S. and its relation to Covid-19 mortality.

“This study suggests that income inequality within US counties was associated with more cases and deaths due to COVID-19 in the summer months of 2020. The COVID-19 pandemic has highlighted the vast disparities that exist in health outcomes owing to income inequality in the US.”

https://jamanetwork.com/journals/jamanetworkopen/fullarticle/2779417

— The racial disparity in Covid-19 deaths in the U.S. was quantified near the start of the pandemic and analyzed in this NPR article written in September 2020. The 200,000 American lives lost was shocking at the time, but look at us now—topping 900,000 deaths and counting.

“Today, as the U.S. has surpassed 200,000 COVID-19 deaths, and reached nearly 7 million confirmed cases, racial data is more complete, and the trend is crystal clear: People of color get sick and die of COVID-19 at rates higher than whites and higher than their share of the population.”

https://www.npr.org/sections/health-shots/2020/09/23/914427907/as-pandemic-deaths-add-up-racial-disparities-persist-and-in-some-cases-worsen

— And finally for this evening, here are recent statistics detailing the racial disparity in Covid-19 deaths straight from the CDC and updated as of February 1, 2022. The CDC’s criteria and results are explained in good detail and specifically note that race and ethnicity are:

“risk markers for other underlying conditions that affect health, including socioeconomic status, access to health care, and exposure to the virus related to occupation, e.g., frontline, essential, and critical infrastructure workers.”

https://www.cdc.gov/coronavirus/2019-ncov/covid-data/investigations-discovery/hospitalization-death-by-race-ethnicity.html

The way our system is structured, the poor and minorities in the United States also have additional risk factors that contribute to their higher hospitalization and mortality rate from Covid-19. When you arshare e working a low wage job, likely without health insurance, maybe trying to take a few classes in the evening to get a degree, have children to take care of, you’re exhausted and probably have neither the time nor money to go to a doctor if you are sick, or even take a day off or just take a nap. You also don’t have the white- collar luxury of working from home during a pandemic, which significantly decreases your chance of getting an airborne, highly contagious illness.

What are your thoughts on this coming together of racial and economic disparity that has created the perfect storm for so many? Share in the comment section below.

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