A brief thread on the impact of COVID-19 on America's Black community.

Speaking in the broadest possible terms, there are two dynamics at play.

1. Black Americans are far more vulnerable during Recessions.
2. Black Americans are far more vulnerable to COVID-19.

Starting with the economy, we can see that the unemployment rate for the population as a whole has skyrocketed. With the initial recovery seeming exceedingly fragile due to skyrocketing caseloads in our 3 largest states.

While unemployment has hit badly across the board, it has been particularly devastating for Black Americans.

There have been severe ramifications. Black and Hispanic Americans are far more likely to expect losing future employment income,

far more likely to be food insecure,

and less confident in their ability to lay rent. While being more likely to rent in the first place!

As bad as all of this would be by itself, Black Americans have also contracted and died from COVID at rates far greater than their white counterparts.

(This times piece was published after the answer this thread is based on was written, but I'm including it to ensure information regarding the death rate is as up to date as possible)
https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2020/07/05/us/coronavirus-latinos-african-americans-cdc-data.html

However, despite all of this, Black Americans report greater mental health and optimism towards the future compared to White Americans across a number of different measurements.

This remains true when comparing the recently unemployed.

This aligns well @cgbrookings previous findings, which suggests a comparatively high resilience among Black Community in general. https://www.brookings.edu/research/well-being-and-mental-health-amid-covid-19-differences-in-resilience-across-minorities-and-whites/

"Using over one million responses over five years from Gallup data for the U.S., we find large gaps in optimism and reported stress across poor African Americans and whites,...."

"with the former almost three times as likely to be a point higher on the 11 point optimism scale and 50% less likely to report experiencing stress the previous day than poor whites (poor Hispanics again fall in between the two groups on the same markers)."

You can find the answer on which this thread is based(with links to the associated graphics) below. https://www.quora.com/q/left-brain/How-has-COVID-19-impacted-Americas-black-community?ch=10&share=d58a4a5a&srid=ReIX