In our last series post A Labor Force in Flux, Changes in Employment by Industry in Forsyth County, we looked at how the COVID-19 pandemic had affected labor force participation and unemployment in Forsyth County and reported on recent changes in employment by industry.
This post digs deeper into the question of ‘who’ by exploring which groups in our community have been most impacted by recent economic shifts and have experienced the worst of the pandemic’s effects. The data in this post looks at the US as a whole; it was produced using the US Census Bureau’s Household Pulse Survey. What is the Pulse Survey? Why look at data at the national level?
The Pulse Survey tracks changes over time in areas like employment, health, housing, food sufficiency, and more. For this post, our research team looked at people who reported losing employment income in the past four weeks. Knowing the proportion of people in various ‘groups’ who reported a loss of employment (which often means lost income) is important to understand topics such as equity and discrimination among groups and it can help in identifying policies and interventions to meet the needs of these economically compromised groups.
Key findings from the analysis:
Specific groups have lost employment income more regularly than their counterparts:
- people with less education;
- people who earn lower incomes;
- people with children;
- Black and Hispanic/Latino people.
Lower income and Black and Hispanic/Latino residents are less likely than their counterparts to have access to wealth or savings, which potentially worsens the economic impact of unemployment for those groups (Lane 2020; Parker et al 2020). Parental job loss can also have negative long-term impacts on children. For example, job loss can have negative impacts on adolescents’ mental health and can increase income inequality in college attendance, especially for African-American students and students from low-income families (Ananat, et al 2017).
Nearly a third of people in some groups reported losing employment income in February, 2022, with peaks near 50% at the beginning of the pandemic:
- people who earn less than $25,000 per year;
- people with less than a high school education;
- Hispanic/Latino people.
In general, Americans are currently experiencing less employment income loss than at the pandemic’s inception.
Some groups are more likely than others to have lost employment income.
Data Notes
What does the statement, “Experienced loss of employment income in the last 4 weeks (for self or household member)” mean? If a member of my household (for example) or myself took the Household Pulse Survey during the April 28 – May 10, 2021 collection period, and someone in my household, including myself, lost employment in the four weeks prior to the date I chose to answer the survey, then I would mark ‘Yes’. Otherwise, I would mark ‘No’.
The light shading above and below the lines in the graph represent the margin of error at the 95% confidence level.
Data Geography
Pulse Survey data is offered at both the US and state level. State-level data provided for North Carolina was not used in this analysis as the margins of error exceeded Forsyth Futures’ internal standards.
Data Source
U.S. Census Bureau (2022). Household Pulse Survey Employment Tables: Table 1. Experienced Loss of Employment Income by Select Characteristics, Week 1-42. Retrieved from https://www.census.gov/programs-surveys/household-pulse-survey/data.html.
Source: Census Bureau’s Household Pulse Survey — April, 2020 through February, 2022. Forsyth Futures, 2022
In our next series post, we will address the question of why we are witnessing such high rates of lost employment and income among certain groups.
What is the Pulse Survey?
Since April 23, 2020, the Census Bureau has been producing data on the social and economic impacts of the COVID-19 pandemic on American households[1]. Now totaling 42 collection periods, the Household Pulse Survey follows a longitudinal survey design that tracks changes over time in areas like employment, health, housing, food sufficiency, and more. In this post, we investigate the national proportion of households that reported experiencing a loss of employment income within the four weeks of taking the point-in-time survey between April 23, 2020 and February 7, 2022 by varying demographics.
- A longitudinal survey “is a research design that involves repeated observations of the same variables over short or long periods of time.”[2]
- A point-in-time survey refers to particular moments in time in which a survey would have been answered by the survey respondent.
Data Geography
Pulse Survey data is offered at both the US and state level. State-level data provided for North Carolina was not used in this analysis as the margins of error exceeded Forsyth Futures’ internal standards.
References
- U.S. Census Bureau (n.d.). Measuring Household Experiences during the Coronavirus Pandemic. Census.Gov. Retrieved February 23, 2022, from https://www.census.gov/householdpulsedata
- Longitudinal study. (2022). In Wikipedia. https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Longitudinal_study&oldid=1065295023
Why look at data at the national level?
Forsyth Futures’ staff analysts began by analyzing Household Pulse Survey data for North Carolina and found that the margin of error, which measures the accuracy of a given estimate, was too high. However, national data, in the context of measuring employment income loss, provides insight as the trends witnessed at the national level are likely applicable to North Carolina and Forsyth County. Employment income loss due to the COVID-19 pandemic is affecting all American communities, not just particular communities. Though some communities have felt the pandemic’s impacts more or less than others, national data trends likely follow a similar direction as our own.
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