H5N1

US: Grocery workers are beginning to die of COVID-19

Via The Washington Post: Grocery workers are beginning to die of coronavirus. Excerpt:

Major supermarket chains are beginning to report their first coronavirus-related employee deaths, leading to store closures and increasing anxiety among grocery workers as the pandemic intensifies across the country.  

A Trader Joe’s worker in Scarsdale, N.Y., a greeter at a Giant store in Largo, Md., and two Walmart employees from the same Chicago-area store have died of covid-19 in recent days, the companies confirmed Monday. 

Though more than 40 states have ordered nonessential businesses to close and told residents to stay home to stem the spread of the virus, supermarkets are among the retailers that remain open. Thousands of grocery employees have continued to report to work as U.S. infections and death rates continue to climb, with many reporting long shifts and extra workloads to keep up with spiking demand. Many workers say they don’t have enough protective gear to deal with hundreds of customers a day. Dozens of grocery workers have tested positive for the coronavirus in recent weeks.  

Industry experts say the rise of worker infections and deaths will likely have a ripple effect on grocers’ ability to retain and add new workers at a time when they’re looking to rapidly hire thousands of temporary employees. Walmart, the nation’s largest grocer, is hiring 150,000 workers, while Kroger is adding more than 10,000. Many are offering an extra $2 an hour and promising masks, gloves and hand sanitizer. But finding workers willing to work on the front lines for little more than the minimum wage could be an increasingly tough sell, according to supermarket analyst Phil Lempert. 

“One of the biggest mistakes supermarkets made early on was not allowing employees to wear masks and gloves the way they wanted to,” he said. “They’re starting to become proactive now, but it’s still going to be much tougher to hire hundreds of thousands of new workers. We’re going to start seeing people say, ‘I’ll just stay unemployed instead of risking my life for a temporary job.’ " 

Some companies have begun installing plexiglass sneeze guards at cash registers and requiring customers to stand 6 feet apart in line. The country’s two largest grocers, Walmart and Kroger, are beginning to check employees’ temperatures at the beginning of each shift and will provide workers with gloves and masks.

The added precautions come amid a wave of worker strikes and petitions aimed at getting employers like Amazon, Trader Joe’s and the grocery delivery service Instacart, to take additional steps to protect workers. (Amazon founder Jeff Bezos owns The Washington Post.)  

Those efforts are likely to take on new urgency, analysts said, as supermarket workers across the country begin to see colleagues fall ill from covid-19. More than 356,000 Americans have tested positive for the coronavirus as of Monday afternoon, and nearly 10,500 have died.  

A Trader Joe’s employee with underlying health conditions died of covid-19 early Monday morning, spokeswoman Kenya Friend-Daniel said. The Scarsdale, N.Y., store where the employee worked is closed until Thursday to give workers “time to process and grieve,” Friend-Daniel said in an email. Employees will continue to be paid during the closure and will receive an additional two days of paid leave, she said.  

Trader Joe’s stores in Brooklyn and Philadelphia also were temporarily closed Monday, for additional cleaning and sanitizing. 

In Illinois, Walmart employees Phillip Thomas, 48, and Wando Evans, 51, both of whom worked at a store in Evergreen Park near Chicago, died in late March, according to labor advocacy group United for Respect.  

A Walmart spokesman said the company is “heartbroken.” The grocery giant has hired an outside company to sanitize “high-touch” areas, such as the front entrance, carts, registers and bathrooms. It has also started installing sneeze guards at cash register and begun limiting the number of customers who can shop at one time.  

In Maryland, Leilani Jordan, 27, a greeter at the Giant’s Campus Way South store in Largo, died last week.  

“She said, ‘Mommy, I’m going to work because no one else is going to help the senior citizens get their groceries,’ ” her mother, Zenobia Shepherd, told The Washington Post. “She only stopped going to work when she could no longer breathe.” 

Her last day at work was March 16, according to Giant spokesman Daniel Wolk. Jordan tested positive for the coronavirus in late March and died Wednesday.

Philippines: Duterte seeks more funds for COVID-19 response as P270B ‘not enough’

Via Inquirer News: Duterte seeks more funds for COVID-19 response as P270B ‘not enough’.

MANILA, Philippines — President Rodrigo Duterte asked Finance Secretary Carlos “Sonny” Dominguez III on Monday evening to look for more sources to fund the government’s response to the COVID-19 pandemic, saying that the P270-billion budget already alotted was “not enough.”  

In a televised address, he noted that P100 billion for one month or P 270 billion for two months was not enough.  

“I’m calling on Secretary of Finance to generate [more],” Duterte said in a televised public address.  

“Magnakaw ka, maghiram ka. Wala akong pakialam. Produce mo ‘yung pera,” he added.  

[Steal it, borrow it. I don’t care. Produce the money.]  

The P270 billion budget for the novel coronavirus response efforts was part of the Bayanihan to Heal As One Act, which granted Duterte special powers to allocate it. 

The President said he would want Dominguez to explore other options to adjust the 2020 national budget.  

The government has set aside P200 billion worth of cash aid to be distributed to about 18 million low-income households.  

The beneficiaries are to receive subsidies of P5,000 to P8,000 per household monthly for two months.

World at risk of second Great Depression due to COVID-19, says Chinese central bank

Via the South China Morning Post: World at risk of second Great Depression due to coronavirus, says Chinese central bank. Excerpt:

China’s central bank has warned the international community to be alert to the risk of a “Great Depression” in the wake of the Covid-19 outbreak, although it said the chances of this occurring was low. 

“The possibility of a ‘Great Depression’ cannot be ruled out if the epidemic continues to run out of control, and the deterioration of the real economy is compounded by an eruption of financial risks,” Zhu Jun, director of the international department of the People's Bank of China, was quoted by local media as saying last week. 

The difficult trade-off between the need to protect public health and the economic cost of shutting almost all face-to-face human activity has prompted warnings from many economists that the economic shock from Covid-19 may be more severe than the 2008 global financial crisis or even the Great Depression. The latter, which began with the Wall Street Crash of 1929, saw credit markets freezing up, massive bankruptcies, US GDP falling by more than 10 per cent and unemployment rates that touched 25 per cent.  

Professor Terence Chong Tai-leung from the department of economics at the Chinese University in Hong Kong, said he was optimistic the global contraction would not be as severe as the 1930s slump. 

“Governments are likely to decide to ease off restrictions by July. They need to prevent disruptions that would cause food shortages, social unrest or greater damage to human lives and the economy than if the restrictions continued,” Chong said. “The economy will naturally rebound when restrictions are lifted.”  

But there is evidence the major toll this crisis is already having a massive impact on the US employment situation. US initial jobless claims of 6.65 million last week, up from 3.3 million the week previous week, highlighted fears of mass unemployment.  

Currently global markets are already down 35 per cent, credit markets have seized up to 2008 levels. Even mainstream financial firms such as Goldman Sachs, JP Morgan and Morgan Stanley expect US GDP to fall by an annualised rate of 6 per cent in the first quarter, and by 24 per cent to 30 per cent in the second. 

Moody’s has warned that 30 per cent of US home loans may stop being serviced as a result of job losses and a lack of support for small businesses. 

Zhu from the Chinese central bank said the biggest market uncertainty came from the fact that central banks’ swift and forceful actions could not directly help to control the epidemic but stopping its spread would help market confidence.

He said the policies of advanced economies had helped stabilise stock market sentiment but hidden risks continued to exist in the global financial system. 

For example, stock markets in developed countries have been rising for many years so their valuations are under pressure. 

If the market panics due to the intensifying impact of the epidemic, that could lead to tighter market liquidity, triggering market contagion across different asset classes. 

The corporate sector, which has a relatively high level of debt, could also see an increase of defaults on banks’ non-performing assets and corporate bonds.

COVID-19: IMF says world recession will be ‘way worse’ than 2008 crisis

Via Globalnews.ca: Coronavirus: IMF says world recession will be ‘way worse’ than 2008 crisis. Excerpt:

The coronavirus pandemic has brought the global economy to a standstill and plunged the world into a recession that will be “way worse” than the global financial crisis a decade ago, the head of the International Monetary Fund said on Friday, calling it “humanity’s darkest hour.” 

The IMF’s managing director, Kristalina Georgieva, speaking at a rare joint news conference with the leader of the World Health Organization (WHO), called on advanced economies to step up their efforts to help emerging markets and developing countries survive the economic and health impact of the pandemic.  

“This is a crisis like no other,” she told some 400 reporters on a video conference call. “We have witnessed the world economy coming to a standstill. We are now in recession. It is way worse than the global financial crisis” of 2008-2009.  

World Bank President David Malpass echoed her outlook in a post on LinkedIn, writing, “Beyond the health impacts from the COVID-19 pandemic, we are expecting a major global recession.”

More than 1 million people worldwide have been infected with COVID-19, the disease caused by the virus, and more than 53,000 have died, a Reuters tally showed on Friday.  

Georgieva said the IMF was working with the World Bank and WHO to advance their call for China and other official bilateral creditors to suspend debt collections from the poorest countries for at least a year until the pandemic subsides.

She said China had engaged “constructively” on the issue, and the IMF would work on a specific proposal in coming weeks with the Paris Club of creditor nations, the Group of 20 major economies and the World Bank for review at the annual Spring Meetings, which will be held online in about two weeks. 

In his posting, Malpass said a debt standstill could begin on May 1, providing added liquidity for the poorest countries as they battle the disease. During the suspension period, he said, the World Bank and the IMF could evaluate the sustainability of those countries’ debt and the possible need for a debt reduction by official creditors and commercial creditors. 

“HUMANITY’S DARKEST HOUR” 

Emerging markets and developing economies have been hard hit by the crisis, Georgieva said, noting that nearly $90 billion in investments had already flowed out of emerging markets, far more than during the financial crisis. Some countries are also suffering from sharp drops in commodity prices.  

More than 90 countries – nearly half the IMF’s 189 members – have asked for emergency funding from the IMF to respond to the pandemic, she said. 

The IMF and WHO have called for emergency aid to be used mainly to strengthen health systems, pay doctors and nurses, and buy protective gear. 

Georgieva said the IMF stood ready to use as much of its “war chest” of $1 trillion in financing capability as needed. The IMF has begun disbursing funds to requesting countries, including Rwanda, with requests from two additional African nations to be reviewed on Friday, she said.

“This is, in my lifetime, humanity’s darkest hour – a big threat to the whole world – and it requires from us to stand tall, be united, and protect the most vulnerable of our fellow citizens,” she said.

Branswell: Americans are underestimating duration of COVID-19 crisis, experts say

Via STAT, Helen Branswell writes: Americans are underestimating duration of coronavirus crisis, experts say. Excerpt:

Public health experts are increasingly worried that Americans are underestimating how long the coronavirus pandemic will disrupt everyday life in the country, warning that the Trump administration’s timelines are offering many a false sense of comfort.  

Coronavirus cases are expected to peak in mid-April in many parts of the country, but quickly reopening businesses or loosening shelter-in-place rules would inevitably lead to a new surge of infections, they said. 

Meanwhile, other parts of the country are only now implementing restrictions and others have not yet ordered the closure of non-essential businesses, creating a patchwork response that will slow progress toward the goal of driving down transmission of the SARS-CoV-2, the virus that causes Covid-19. 

“The administration has consistently shown a desire to underplay the severity of whatever is coming. And they’re constantly adjusting that — as it becomes harder to deny the reality will be worse than what they’ve conditioned people for,” said Jeremy Konyndyk, a senior policy fellow at the Center for Global Development. 

Konyndyk said he and other experts he’s discussed the matter with believe an “intensive period of social distancing and a national semi-voluntary lockdown” will last for months.   

President Trump, after signaling that he may try to restore some sense of normalcy in the country by Easter, has acknowledged that difficult times are ahead and that restrictions should remain in place until the end of April. 

But experts say that, even if some restrictions are relaxed, it’s unlikely life as normal will resume in early May.  

A former director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, Thomas Frieden, said this week that it’s understandable that people want to know when businesses can reopen and some facets of life can resume. But he said the focus of public discourse now needs to be on the public health response, not the question of when restrictions can be lifted.  

“Decisions to reopen society should not be about a date, but about the data,” Frieden, now president and CEO of the global public health initiative Resolve to Save Lives, said during a briefing Wednesday for journalists. “How well and how quickly we do these things will determine how soon and how safely we can reopen.”  

He and others have outlined steps that should be taken before restrictions are lifted to ensure new cases do not continue to grow exponentially, collapsing health care systems under their weight. Frieden stressed the importance of expanded testing to know where the virus is transmitting as well as setting up public health infrastructures to trace the contacts of cases and monitor them in quarantine.  

“We need an army of contact tracers in every community in the U.S. to be ready to find every contact and warn them to care for themselves and stop spreading it to others,” he said.

Those resources do not current exist, said Konyndyk, who also noted that hospital capacity across the country needs to be expanded and protective equipment for health workers restocked. There are currently global shortages. 

“If we want to be able to — as I think we need to — turn our economy back on in a safe way, we need to be able to do that sort of thing at scale,” Konyndyk said. “And we do not have anywhere close to the public health infrastructure that’s needed to pull that off.”  

“That’s fundamental to getting us out of this lockdown phase. And the government’s not talking about it, much less acting on it,” he said.

COVID-19: Over 1 million people infected worldwide, with US accounting for more than a fifth

Via the South China Morning Post: Coronavirus latest: Over 1 million people infected worldwide, with US accounting for more than a fifth. Excerpt:

The number of confirmed Covid-19 cases worldwide exceeded 1 million on Thursday, with the US accounting for more than a fifth of the total. 

A running tally of the global spread of the new respiratory ailment by Johns Hopkins University hit seven digits around 12.30pm Eastern Standard Time, as health authorities in the US struggle to manage a rapid escalation in new cases and deaths. 

Dr Deborah Birx, the White House coronavirus task force’s response coordinator, warned on Tuesday that the US was likely entering the most challenging two-week period in terms of new cases and deaths. as the contagion had begun spreading widely in New York City, an epicentre of the outbreak, and other metropolitan areas across the nation before strict stay-at-home orders were put into place. 

The US, with more known cases of the coronavirus than any other nation, has over 230,000 confirmed Covid-19 cases and more than 5,600 deaths attributable to the illness, according to the Johns Hopkins numbers. 

Also on Thursday, the US Labour Department released record-breaking jobless numbers for the second consecutive week. First-time unemployment claims doubled to 6.6 million from 3.3 million the previous week – or roughly 10 million jobs lost in two weeks.

COVID-19: Humanity faces gravest challenge since World War II, UN says

Via The New York Times: Coronavirus Live Updates: Humanity Faces Gravest Challenge Since World War II, U.N. Says.

The International Monetary Fund has declared that the world economy has now entered a recession and recovery is unlikely until 2021. As many as 25 million jobs could simply disappear and the world could lose some $3.4 trillion in labor income. More than 1.5 billion students are currently out of school or university, representing 87 percent of the world’s children and young people, and about 60 million teachers are no longer in the classroom.

That is just a sampling of the radical ways the virus and the fight to slow its spread are reshaping the world, according to a United Nations report.

“Covid-19 is the greatest test that we have faced together since the formation of the United Nations,” António Guterres, the secretary general of the United Nations, said on Wednesday.  

The report stated, “This is the moment to dismantle trade barriers, maintain open trade, and re-establish supply chains.” “

Tariff and nontariff measures, as well as export bans, especially those imposed on medicinal and related products, would slow countries’ action to contain the virus,” the study added. “Import taxes or restrictions on medical supplies need to be waived.” 

The report called for “a large-scale, coordinated and comprehensive multilateral response amounting to at least 10 percent of global G.D.P.”  

As the virus swept around the world, the first reaction of many nations was to retreat within their own borders, institute travel restrictions and nationalize the fight against the virus. 

But the United Nations said that in this global fight, a global approach was needed. 

And it is essential that developed countries immediately assist those less developed to bolster their health systems, the report found. Otherwise, the world faces the nightmare of the disease spreading like wildfire in the Global South, according to the report, with “millions of deaths and the prospect of the disease re-emerging where it was previously suppressed."

Bolsonaro ignored by state governors amid anger at handling of Covid-19 crisis

Via The Guardian: Bolsonaro ignored by state governors amid anger at handling of Covid-19 crisis.

Brazil’s president Jair Bolsonaro is facing a growing backlash over his handling of the coronavirus crisis, with the state governors responsible for more than 200 million of the country’s 210 million people refusing to follow his commands over the pandemic. 

Bolsonaro has repeatedly played down the dangers of Covid-19 and last week urged Brazilians to get back to work – in defiance of advice from the World Health Organization and his own health ministry. 

But his exhortations have been largely ignored by politicians and the general public. 

Just three of Brazil’s 27 states, home to 5.7 million people, have relaxed social isolation measures as coronavirus cases continue to rise – Brazil has 5,717 confirmed cases and 201 deaths. A study showed almost 60% of Brazilians are staying at home.

João Doria, the governor of Brazil’s most populous and economically important state, São Paulo, has maintained a strict quarantine and this week openly defied Bolsonaro, telling its 44 million citizens: “Do not follow the guidance of the president.”  

Wilson Witzel, Rio de Janeiro state’s rightwing governor, has also refused to back away from strict social isolation measures. “So far I’ve been asking, now I am giving an order: don’t leave your home,” Witzel told his state’s 17 million residents on Monday as he extended Rio’s shut down for another fortnight.  

Witzel, a one-time Bolsonaro ally, went on to suggest the president’s behaviour could land him a trial at the International Criminal Court in the Hague.  

Only the rightwing governors of the Amazon states of Rondônia and Roraima, both Bolsonaro allies, have followed the president’s lead by relaxing restrictions on shops and businesses. In Roraima’s capital Boa Vista and Rondônia’s capital Porto Velho many – but not all - shops are open and there are people on the streets. In Mato Grosso shops have also partially re-opened. 

Ciro Gomes, a prominent leftwing politician from north-eastern Brazil, told the Guardian that in order to save thousands of lives, the country now needed – and was starting to witness – “an extensive campaign of civil disobedience initiated by governors, mayors, the overwhelming majority of religious leaders and the media”.  

Gomes admitted the loss of many lives was now inevitable – but such a mutiny against Bolsonaro could help lessen the scale of the tragedy and represented “an act of protection for the Brazilian people”.  

Bolsonaro has described coronavirus as a “little flu” and claimed his athletic background would protect him from it. “You have to face it like a soldier on the battlefield,” he told Rede TV on Monday. The previous day he told reporters: “We’ll all die one day.”  

The president has argued the damage caused by shutting down Brazil’s economy will be worse than that caused by the virus, and has also suggested state governors were inflating the numbers of coronavirus victims to justify restrictive lockdown measures.  

But as well as facing a rebellion from regional chiefs, Bolsonaro now also appears increasingly isolated from his own cabinet.

At a press conference with other ministers on Monday, Bolsonaro’s health minister Luiz Mandetta called on people to follow state governments and maintain the “the maximum degree of social isolation” – a day after the president mingled with people on the streets of Brasília and said he was considering a decree to let them go back to work. 

On Tuesday the Folha de São Paulo newspaper reported that justice minister Sérgio Moro, finance minister Paulo Guedes, Mandetta and military officers in the government had formed a block opposing the president’s stance.  

“Bolsonaro has put himself into self-isolation,” said José Álvaro Moisés, a professor of political science at the University of São Paulo.

COVID-19 and the rebounding Chinese economy

Via Caixin Daily: a couple of news items and then a long comment:

China’s March factory outlook jumps as global threat looms  

Chinese manufacturing activity rebounded strongly in March, signaling that the world’s second-largest economy is restarting just as it faces a growing threat from slumping external demand.   

For manufacturing, the official purchasing managers’ index rose to 52.0 this month, according to data released by the National Bureau of Statistics on Tuesday. That’s up from a record low of 35.7 in February and above the 50 mark that signals improving conditions. The gauge covering services and construction was at 52.3. While the rise indicates better sentiment at Chinese factories, output remains a long way from normal.   

China should just give its people cash, experts say  

Chinese economists have called for the central government to provide direct cash transfers to low-income families as they find it difficult to make ends meet amid the Covid-19 pandemic.   

Since the novel coronavirus broke out in China at the end of last year, millions of people have lost their incomes as factories and stores were shut down to contain the virus. While businesses in the country are now gradually resuming work as the outbreak eases, employment is taking another hit as overseas demand plummets while the virus spreads abroad. 

Export backlogs grow for Chinese ventilator-makers 

The coronavirus pandemic sparked a global hunt for mechanical ventilators. Spurred by soaring global demand and with the local outbreak more or less under control, Chinese ventilator-makers are now shifting their focus from domestic use to the export market.   

In the 10 days starting March 19, China shipped around 1,700 mechanical ventilators to markets outside the country — about half that supplied to domestic hospitals this year, Ministry of Industry and Information Technology (MIIT) official Xu Kemin told a news briefing Monday in Beijing. As of Monday, China took orders for nearly 20,000 of the machines from overseas buyers, and a “large number” of other orders were under negotiation, according to Xu.

Imagine that: I have lived to see socialism advocated as the solution to the problems of communist China! What next, the overthrow of Czar Vladimir Putin and the installation of USSR 2.0?

The resurgence of the Chinese economy can be tracked by its CO2 emissions, as the climate site Carbon Brief has documented. But I can see another problem implicit in these news items: the ventilator gap is being treated by everyone as salvation technology, and if even North Korea could help meet global demand, it would find eager buyers around the world.

 

But what about routine Chinese manufacturing—the ordinary cheap consumer stuff that people line up for at Walmart (while keeping their distance, of course)? Unless global consumers have money in their pockets, China's renewed output will languish in containers on the Shanghai waterfront.

 

Even with oil making shipping costs effectively free, exports make no economic sense if buyers have neither the money nor the desire to spend more than they absolutely have to. Borrow more money to buy the kids Super Squirters and take them on holiday to Mexico? Don't even go there.

 

In the three short months since the first online rumours came out of Wuhan, COVID-19 has shaken the triumphant global economy into rubble. The collapse is ongoing, and the dust will not settle in any foreseeable future. I was born in 1941, when the US and Canada were barely emerging from the Great Depression, and unless COVID-19 picks me off I will live to see the start of the Greater Depression.

 

When advanced societies collapse, they don't go back to hunting and gathering. When the Mayan kings couldn't feed their people, the people overthrew them, deserted the great cities, and went back to village-level subsistence farming. Similarly, we will likely revert to (at a guess) 1920s-style industrial capitalism on a national scale, with tariff barriers and enough 20th-century-level weaponry to discourage foreign adventures against us.

 

That's assuming our reduced emissions ease climate change enough to let us survive foreseeable disasters for the next couple of decades: the wildfires, droughts, floods, and hurricanes...and the violence provoked by those disasters.

 

If the disasters persist regardless, we could be in real trouble. 

The quarantine economy: How COVID-19 is worsening economic inequality in America

Via Rentonomics, a report by Chris Salviati and Rob Warnock: The Quarantine Economy: How Coronavirus Is Worsening Economic Inequality in America. Excerpt:

As the quarantine economy forces hundreds of millions indoors, the ability to work from home has emerged as a key factor in determining who can and cannot continue to do their jobs. In places where shelter-in-place orders have taken effect, employees of businesses deemed “non-essential” are told to either work remotely or not work at all. 

This means that workers whose jobs require in-person interaction may be at immediate risk of losing their incomes. The option to work from home may always have been seen as a perk of certain occupations, but now it has now become crucial to the economic security of workers across the country.  

However, the ability to work remotely is far from universal. Using data from the Bureau of Labor Statistics and Census American Community Surveys, we calculate the percentage of workers who say they have the ability to work from home, broken down by income. 

We find a stark correlation between income and job flexibility; America’s lowest-earners are those who are least likely to be able to take advantage of remote working arrangements. Among workers who earn $100,000 annually or more, a majority (51.7 percent) say they can do their jobs from home. Meanwhile, remote work is possible for just 15.3 percent of those who earn $25,000 per year or less. 

The ability to work from home also varies substantially by occupation. We have previously reported that work-from-home arrangements have risen in popularity over the past decade as teleconference technology improves. But it is mostly office workers who can take advantage of these technologies and fulfill their responsibilities from any place with a strong internet connection. Some of the economy’s most common industries—such as retail, food service, and construction—require that employees show up in person because of the very nature of the work. 

There is a direct relationship between economic stability and the ability to work remotely. The chart below plots the share of workers in a given occupation who can work remotely against the share of full-time workers in that occupation who live below the poverty line. Markers are sized according to the total number of workers employed in the given occupation. 

A clear pattern emerges: most occupations cluster along either the vertical or horizontal axes. Moving up the vertical axis shows occupations with increasing capability to work remotely; for many of these jobs, poverty rates hover close to zero. For example, 86 percent of full-time software developers say that they can work from home under normal conditions, and just 1.1 percent of these workers fall below the poverty line. Similarly, just 0.5 percent of lawyers are impoverished, and 75 percent report being able to work remotely. 

Unfortunately, poverty is not so rare for other sets of American workers, even those working full-time. Moving to the right along the horizontal axis shows occupations with increasing poverty rates. Importantly, those with the highest poverty rates are those for which remote work is difficult or impossible. Maids and housekeepers, for example, are fully incapable of working from home, and face a poverty rate of 12.7 percent. Similarly, 11.3 percent of full-time cooks live below the poverty line. 

Keep in mind that the poverty threshold for an individual in 2018 was just $12,784, and for a family of four it was just $25,465. The poverty rate reflects only those facing the most extreme economic hardship, and many who fall above the poverty line still bear significant financial strain.  

As the quarantine economy forces more of the workforce to go remote, the most economically vulnerable face the greatest risk of losing their income streams. This vulnerability goes beyond the size of one’s paycheck. Workers who are unable to do their jobs remotely face a number of additional hurdles. As demonstrated in the following section, they are less likely to have paid sick leave or employer-sponsored health insurance, less likely to own homes, and more likely to be burdened by the cost of housing. 

Which Workers Are At Greater Economic Risk? 

A key component of the today’s shelter-in-place orders are the exceptions granted to workers employed in industries that are deemed “essential.” Earlier we described the general economic benefits of jobs that allow remote work. But in the quarantine economy, this concept of essentiality is an equally important factor in identifying which workers will face the greatest economic risk. 

Essentiality varies slightly from place to place, but is based on federal guidelines about what constitutes “critical infrastructure” during the coronavirus pandemic. For the most part, jobs related to manufacturing, agriculture, medicine, government services, and national defense are considered essential. Others, like education, entertainment, and some retail are non-essential. Employees of non-essential businesses are therefore prevented from working, that is, unless they can work from home.