The Impact of COVID-19 on Low-Income Individuals and Families

The coronavirus pandemic (COVID-19) has disrupted most areas of social and economic life, with disproportionate effects on service workers and low-income families. The negative effects of the COVID-19 pandemic may substantially reduce the financial, economic, social, mental, and physical wellbeing of disadvantaged workers and their families. Economists Sarah Miller, Alex Bartik, and Eva Vivalt, political scientist David Broockman, and social worker and political scientist Elizabeth Rhodes will examine the immediate effects of the COVID-19 pandemic on low-income individuals and families. They will conduct surveys and track the location of low-income individuals via cellphone GPS who were enrolled in the Y Combinator Research Basic Income study prior to the COVID-19 crisis. The basic income intervention was scheduled to begin in late summer or early fall of 2020. The researchers will investigate the following questions: 1) How did time use change for low-income adults at the onset of the coronavirus crisis? 2) How did financial and economic wellbeing change following the coronavirus crisis? 3) How did social, physical, and mental wellbeing change in the immediate wake of the crisis?