As eligibility for the Covid-19 vaccine expands to all Americans and the country moves towards a full re-opening, durably returning to normal life depends on vaccine uptake. The U.S. developed and produced vaccines at record speed and, initially, the rate of daily administered doses rose sharply from January to April 2021. Since May 2021, however, the pace of rollout has declined and many remain unvaccinated.
Each year, millions of U.S. workers experience the need for time away from work after welcoming a new child to the family or because of a health or a caregiving need. However, the U.S. is one of the few industrialized countries that does not offer comprehensive paid leave with job protection to workers. While some benefit from paid family and medical leave offered by a handful of states, the large majority of American workers have no such protections. Voluntary employer leave policies overwhelmingly benefit white-collar, salaried workers, leaving most low-wage workers unpaid and unprotected in the event they need time...
On July 1, 2017, Seattle implemented one of the nation’s first laws mandating schedule predictability for a subset of workers. The Secure Scheduling Ordinance (SSO) covers hourly workers at retail and food service establishments with 500 or more employees worldwide and at full-service restaurants with at least 500 employees and at least 40 locations worldwide.
The COVID-19 pandemic has cast a bright light on the difficult working conditions faced by many workers in the service sector. Workers in retail, food service, delivery and fulfillment positions are now lauded as “essential” and front-line heroes, yet, even in the midst of this praise, and in the midst of a pandemic, these same workers often lack the basic ability to take a paid sick day.
This interactive visualization shows changes in the adoption of personal protection equipment across different employers during the early stages of the COVID-19 pandemic.
COVID-19 has made service sector jobs much more dangerous. But, while the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) released guidelines to prevent infections in the workplace, employers were largely left to adopt measures at their own discretion. Scattered reports suggested that these efforts often fell short, especially early in the pandemic and that substantial variation in the adoption of safety practices persisted across states and firms.
The effect of the coronavirus outbreak on the U.S. labor market has been profound. In the early weeks of the outbreak, the unemployment rate skyrocketed from 4% in February to almost 15% in April of 2020. Although the economy has partially recovered since April, as of August 2020, the unemployment rate stood at over 8%, more than twice as high as it had been just 6 months prior. The economic toll of the coronavirus outbreak has been particularly severe for service sector workers. As state-wide orders to close businesses went into effect, many retail, food service, and hospitality workers experienced...
The coronavirus outbreak has caused a massive global economic and health shock, which has exacerbated existing social inequalities. Workers in the service sector, many of whom were already in an economically precarious position before the pandemic when the economy was booming, were among the hardest hit. Many of these workers experienced layoffs or furloughs, while others, particularly in grocery, pharmacy, and delivery sectors, were deemed essential workers. These essential workers are not able to work from home and shelter in place, but rather continue to report for work and risk exposure to coronavirus throughout the pandemic. Workers of color were...
The coronavirus outbreak has had a massive impact on public health and the economy. In the United States, the 25 million workers employed in the service sector have been hit particularly hard by the health and economic crisis. Workers in some segments of the retail and food-service industries have experienced reductions in hours as well as widespread layoffs due to store closures or dramatically reduced demand. At the same time, workers employed in the grocery, delivery, and pharmacy sectors have been designated as “essential” workers and are experiencing an entirely different set of challenges. These workers are continuing to show...
Against the backdrop of a global health crisis, service-sector workers are newly visible. While millions of American workers have been instructed to stay home, workers in the grocery, food-service, pharmacy, hardware, and delivery sectors continue to stock stores, fulfill take-out orders, and deliver necessities. Their work is vital to the wellbeing and survival of the population during the coronavirus pandemic. But, these members of the essential workforce are highly vulnerable to the economic and health risks posed by the pandemic.
