Sunday, June 21, 2020

Who are U.S. essential workers in the coronavirus lockdowns? McCormack, Avery, Spitzer and Chandra in JAMA

Here's a paper in JAMA that focuses on households with essential workers, many of whom are low income.   40% of adult workers are classified as essential workers, and a quarter of them earn less than $40,000.

McCormack G, Avery C, Spitzer AK, Chandra A. Economic Vulnerability of Households With Essential Workers. JAMA. Published online June 18, 2020. doi:10.1001/jama.2020.11366

"We analyzed data from the Public Use Microdata Sample of the 2018 American Community Survey (ACS). The US Census Bureau chooses a random sample of US addresses each month, contacts selected households by mail, and follows up by phone and personal visit to address nonresponse.3 The Department of Homeland Security’s Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA) released an “Essential Critical Infrastructure Workforce” advisory list of occupations necessary to “continuity of functions critical to public health and safety” in March 2020 and updated that list in April 2020.4 We matched industry and subindustry codes in the ACS to the 6-digit Standard Occupation Codes (indexed by the US Bureau of Labor Statistics) in the CISA advisory list to identify essential workers.5 We assessed the proportion and demographic characteristics (age, sex, race as given in response to a multiple-choice question) of essential workers by industry."




"Eight of the 21 industry categories from the ACS accounted for 73% of essential workers. Health care accounted for a larger proportion (15%) of essential workers than any other industry: 65% of health care workers held essential jobs. Black individuals were overrepresented in several essential industries, notably transportation (23%), public administration (18%), and health care (18%).

"A total of 1 410 976 households were represented in the 2018 ACS with an estimated 51% of those households including an essential worker. Table 2 summarizes household characteristics of essential workers: 25% of essential workers were estimated to have low household income, 18% to live in a household with at least 1 uninsured person, and 18% to live with someone 65 years or older. We estimated that 48% of essential workers lived in a household with at least 1 risk and 13% of essential workers lived in high-risk households."

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