Hispanics more likely than Americans overall to see COVID-19 as a major threat to health and finances
Many US Latinos were just now seeing their personal income bounce back after the Great Recession, then this.
Hispanics are more concerned than Americans overall about the threat the COVID-19 outbreak poses to the health of the U.S. population, their own financial situation and the day-to-day life of their local community, according to a new survey fielded as part of Pew Research Center’s Election News Pathways project.
The spread of the coronavirus has the potential to hit many of the nation’s nearly 60 million Latinos particularly hard. Although the Latino unemployment rate dipped at the end of 2019 to a near record low, many Latinos work in the leisure, hospitality and other service industries – and they are less likely to have health insurance. Latinos were hit especially hard by the Great Recession more than a decade ago, and some workers have only recently seen their median personal incomes bounce back and exceed pre-recession levels.
Large majorities of Hispanics and the general public (both 70%) say the new coronavirus poses a major threat to the U.S. economy. But on other questions, Latinos’ concerns are more pronounced than those of the wider public. About two-thirds (65%) of Hispanic adults say the coronavirus outbreak is a major threat to the health of the U.S. population as a whole, compared with about half (47%) of the general public. More Hispanics than Americans overall say the outbreak is a major threat to their personal financial situation (50% vs. 34%), day-to-day life in their local community (49% vs. 36%) and their personal health (39% vs. 27%).
