“There’s a war going on outside … no man is safe.” On so many levels, Prodigy’s opening line on the hit Mobb Deep song, “Survival of Fittest,” has been realized in a way that no one could have ever imagined 25 years ago when the song was released.
Since the COVID-19 virus has rocked the nation, causing so much of the country’s businesses to come to a screeching halt, unemployment has been at an all-time high. Americans have lost 20.5 million jobs in April alone and the communities hit hardest are minorities and women.
READ MORE: 26 million have sought US unemployment benefits since virus hit
According to the U.S. Bureau of Labor, the United States has amassed a 14.7% unemployment rate, Blacks and Latinx people have been hit harder than their white counterparts and work for women has been more reduced than work for men.
The New York Times reports that Latinx people have experienced the most joblessness, reaching the community’s highest unemployment rate (18.9%) in 50 years. Black people are right behind them with a close to 17% unemployment rate, tripling the pre-pandemic report given only three months ago.
And if minorities catch a cold in seasons of economic turmoil, women — Black and brown women to be exact — catch, well, the impact of COVID-19.
While women in general have a 22% unemployment rate, men overall (without respect of race) hit four points below with 18%.
But as we compare white women with their Black and brown counterparts, they fair better. According to the comprehensive breakdown of unemployment by race, sex, and age, comparing April 2019 to April 2020, white women saw an increase in unemployment from 2.4% to 14.6%, Black women saw an increase from 4.8% to 15.8% and Hispanic and Latina women went from 3.4% to 19.8% last month.
READ MORE: Petition asks Congress to protect Black-owned businesses during COVID-19
The statistics are daunting.
Industries hit the hardest? Leisure and hospitality, restaurants, the arts, entertainment, & recreation industry, retail, and the accommodation industry. Still, be very clear folk across the board are losing their jobs.
No one knows, even with the president’s rush to reopen states and industries for business when the employment hemorrhaging will end.