The Berke-Weiss Law Weekly Round Up

Welcome to another edition of the Berke-Weiss Law weekly roundup. This week we’re looking at the opportunity coronavirus has provided to rethink care structures in the US, the disproportionate impact lockdowns have had on black communities, and ballooning unemployment numbers for women over 55. As always, the news may be grim, but we must forge ahead and think of new, creative solutions to problems that needed addressing long before coronavirus arrived.

Shining a Light on Domestic Care Workers 

In the New York Review of Books Daily, Ai-jen Poo, director of the National Domestic Workers Alliance, argues that a potential silver lining to the coronavirus is that we all must care now. Poo notes that millions of domestic workers live in poverty and this has been devastating for them and others who can’t simply work from home. But, with the loss of domestic care workers, whether cleaning or childcare, has opened up a new reality to the people who relied on it. Working parents who are now at home are realizing just much care work is externalized and in an instant, “the pandemic had created something that we at the NDWA have sought to create for decades: mass public awareness about the importance of care work.” Coming out of this, Poo urges us to continue demanding better pay for careworkers as well as affordable and universal childcare options for working parents faced with making choices between family health, financial stability, and workplace rights.

Black Workers Increasingly Worried about Future Employment

What bubbles beneath the killing of George Floyd in Minneapolis on May 25 is the grim reality setting in for working class black communities across the country, which have already experienced outsize negative health outcomes from the coronavirus. A quick economic recovery seems less and less likely, and black communities are facing greater economic disparities, according to reports from the Financial Times and  New York Times. Fewer than 50% of black adults currently have jobs, and while unemployment has shot up for all Americans, there is good reason to think that unemployment will affect black communities for far longer than others. As the FT pointed out, over the last decade, median income for black households grew at 3.4% while median income for non-Hispanic white households grew at 8.8%.

Unemployment Jumps for Women 55 and Over

Another group which has seen significant job losses is women over 55. As Forbes reported earlier this week, the unemployment rate for women 55 and over shot up from 3.3% to 15.5% by the end of April. This comes as a result of the particular industries that were most affected by the lockdowns were also industries which were heavily populated by women, such as hospitality and services. Additionally, women have picked up most of the caregiving duties as child and elderly care options have dwindled.