Income Inequality Covid 19

Inequality across gender diversity and covid 19.

Income inequality covid 19. Long before covid 19 researchers had documented income gradients in both these and other chronic conditions as well as income gradients in access to care in several countries. As a purely mechanical matter the rich have a lot more money to lose when the stock market crashes and most sectors of the economy grind to a halt. The covid 19 pandemic has exacerbated long standing gender inequalities. Blacks and hispanics are overrepresented in occupations that make it difficult to maintain a safe distance from others and therefore present a higher risk of contracting covid 19 in the workplace.

For example evidence from canada shows that prevalence rates for a set of 17 chronic conditions are 15 percentage points higher for the bottom income quintile than the. Considering all these factors together a worsening of income inequality along racial and ethnic lines during the covid 19 recession is expected. Major epidemics in this century have raised income inequality and hurt the employment prospects of people with low educational attainment while scarcely affecting those with advanced degrees. By james kwak by some measures in the short term covid 19 will surely reduce inequality of wealth and probably inequality of income as well.

How covid 19 is laying bare inequality. The rich getting richer and the poor getting poorer has been the story of wealth disparity for the last 50 years and the covid 19 pandemic appears set to continue the trend. This column argues that the covid 19 pandemic could have similar distributional consequences unless this time is different and government policies end up being effective in raising boats. The virus is a risk factor particularly for those at the lower end of the income distribution who are vulnerable to the interaction of the shock with income socio economic and urban inequalities.