A survey published Tuesday found that job losses related to the coronavirus pandemic have disproportionately affected Latinos in New York City.
Experts who surveyed 1,000 city residents found that 41 percent of Latinos said that either they or someone else in their household had lost their jobs in the last two weeks, according to the report from the Graduate School of Public Health and Health Policy at City University of New York. In comparison, less than a quarter (24 percent) of non-Latino white and Asian American respondents, as well as 15 percent of African American respondents, reported household job loss.
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"It's likely because the Hispanic community, many are in service jobs like restaurants or hotels," Scott Ratzan, a senior scholar at CUNY who led the survey, said in a statement, adding that job loss is "higher among the Spanish-speaking community."
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New York, the hardest-hit state, has nearly 26,000 confirmed cases of coronavirus and 210 deaths, according to NBC News numbers. New York City has become the center of the coronavirus in the state, with confirmed cases surpassing 15,000 and at least 125 deaths.
"While the virus can affect anybody indiscriminately, certain populations are being harmed more," Ratzan said. "These numbers are telling that we have challenges in our response and need to be evidence-driven in how we respond from a public health and communication perspective."
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