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Financial profiles of workers most vulnerable to coronavirus‐related earnings loss in the spring of 2020
Author(s) -
HelppieMcFall Brooke,
Hsu Joanne W.
Publication year - 2020
Publication title -
financial planning review
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
ISSN - 2573-8615
DOI - 10.1002/cfp2.1102
Subject(s) - earnings , unemployment , layoff , financial distress , demographic economics , business , vulnerability (computing) , covid-19 , wage , labour economics , economics , finance , economic growth , medicine , financial system , computer security , disease , pathology , computer science , infectious disease (medical specialty)
In the spring of 2020, the COVID‐19 pandemic and related shutdowns had huge effects on unemployment. Using data from the Survey of Consumer Finances, we describe the financial profiles of US families whose workers were most vulnerable to coronavirus‐related earnings losses in the spring of 2020, based on whether a particular worker was deemed “essential” and whether a worker's job could be conducted remotely. We use descriptive analytic techniques to examine how families' baseline financial situations would allow them to weather COVID‐shutdown‐related earnings losses. We find that families with non‐teleworkable workers who were most vulnerable to layoff also had both demographic and financial profiles that are associated with greater vulnerability to income shocks: non‐teleworkable families were more likely to be people of color and single wage‐earners, and also to have less savings. The median non‐teleworkable family, whether in non‐essential or essential occupations, held only 3 weeks of income in savings, underscoring the importance of policy measures to blunt the financial effects of the COVID crisis.