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Covid-19 pandemic shines a light on a new kind of class divide and its inequalities
Key Excerpts from Article on Website of The Guardian (One of the UK's leading newspapers)
Posted: May 18th, 2020
https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2020/apr/25/covid-...
The Covid-19 pandemic is putting the deepening class divide in America into stark relief. Four new classes are emerging. The Remotes: These are professional, managerial, and technical workers an estimated 35% of the workforce who are putting in long hours at their laptops ... and collecting about the same pay as before the crisis. The Essentials: Theyre about 30% of workers, including nurses, homecare and childcare workers, farm workers, food processors, truck drivers, warehouse and transit workers, drugstore employees, sanitation workers, police officers, firefighters, and the military. Too many Essentials lack adequate protective gear, paid sick leave, health insurance, and childcare. They also deserve hazard pay. The Unpaid: Theyre an even larger group than the unemployed whose ranks could soon reach 25%, the same as in the Great Depression. 43% of adults report they or someone in their household has lost jobs or pay. The unpaid most need cash to feed their families and pay the rent. Fewer than half say they have enough emergency funds to cover three months of expenses. The Forgotten: This group includes everyone ... packed tightly into places most Americans dont see: prisons, jails for undocumented immigrants, camps for migrant farmworkers, Native American reservations, homeless shelters, and nursing homes. The Essentials, the Unpaid, and the Forgotten are disproportionately poor, black, and Latino and they are disproportionately becoming infected.
Note: For more along these lines, see concise summaries of deeply revealing news articles on the coronavirus pandemic and income inequality from reliable major media sources.
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