Southern Californians may be feeling the economic effects of the impact caused by the coronavirus outbreak more than other cities across the United States, according to key findings from University of Southern California’s Center for Economic and Social Research.
Kyla Thomas, a Sociologist for the USC Center for Economic and Social Research, tells Inside the Issues they decided to survey U.S. residents and Los Angeles County residents to measure the effects on Angelenos compared with the rest of the country. When it comes to employment, the survey, from mid-March and mid-April, shows employment dropped 10 percentage points, or about 25.5 million jobs, across the nation for those 18 years or older.
“We found in L.A. an even greater drop in employment levels — 16 percentage point drop to about 45 percent currently unemployed which equates to about 1.3 million jobs lost in Los Angeles County.”
When it comes to the reason why there was such an enormous amount of jobs lost, Thomas says they plan to dig deeper to get a better understanding, but it is likely because there are so many “service sector” jobs in L.A.
“We're finding that those types of jobs tend to be the ones that were hit the hardest by the pandemic, so that's what our hypothesis is.”
The survey also looked at demographical data like gender, race and education and found a higher rate of job loss among African Americans, at 21 percent, and Latinos, at 18 percent. They also see steeper job losses among women and those who are less educated.
Thomas says the job losses seem to have increased anxiety among individuals as they saw an increase in mental health issues.
“We found a 9 percentage point increase in symptoms of mild to severe anxiety and depression in the United States and we found an even steeper increase in Los Angeles County, about a 12 percentage point increase,” she says. “Currently, 48 percent of L.A. County residents aged 18 years or older appear to be experiencing mild to severe symptoms of anxiety and depression.”
Thomas says they will continue to survey people across the United States and compare the data with L.A. County residents, especially when it comes to comparing this economic downturn to the recession in 2008, and how quickly the country will recover.
“One thing I will point out is, we do find a high percentage of recent job losses appear to be temporary job losses, so temporary layoffs. The question is: Do these layoffs turn into permanent layoffs or not? But that finding suggests that perhaps there will be a rebound,” she says.
“On the other hand, we're finding that people's daily routines, their habits, have changed dramatically since mid-March and people are feeling more economically insecure, they’re feeling more vulnerable in terms of their health, so, when we do try to go back to normal, how long will it take for people to start going to restaurants, to start buying goods, to start consuming? And growth really is dependent on people’s consumption behaviors, so that’s the question.”
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