COVID-19: The Continued and Disproportionate Impact on Low-Income, People of Color and Immigrant Communities
April 2024: We launched this site in October 2020, amidst a global pandemic, and the past four years have only reaffirmed what we already knew—that communities of color persistently face stark social and economic inequities. The COVID-19 pandemic brought these realities to the forefront, as immigrants, who are often people of color, faced higher rates of disease and death, while also comprising a larger share of the “essential” workforce that sustained the state as more privileged workers stayed home (see charts below). In addition, the digital divide became even more apparent, as some young students sat outside of businesses to log into classrooms and seniors experienced isolation and challenges accessing services, as well as information online. Researchers also found that Californians living in neighborhoods already impacted by higher levels of pollution—and more likely to be Latino and low-income—were at higher risk for COVID-19 infections. At the same time, immigrants also composed a large share of those impacted by pandemic unemployment and those that had limited access to relief.
Navigating this challenging landscape, after immigrants and advocates implored the state to do more, California provided relief to some immigrants. Further, mutual aid efforts and community organizations statewide stepped up and continue to provide essential services, including connecting immigrant families to safety net programs. First-of-its kind efforts such as the California Immigrant Resilience Fund, established the infrastructure for the state to quickly mobilize to respond to the crisis. State and national pandemic response kept poverty rates down in the early years of the pandemic, though income inequality persisted as the state’s top 1 percent grew richer and many immigrants were unable to access much of the federal aid. Mutual aid organizations and other community-based organizations often worked to fill the gap, providing critical assistance to immigrant communities.
Yet, poverty rates rose dramatically in 2022, as much of the pandemic-related public assistance expired, (e.g., supplemental paid sick leave and an eviction moratorium for renters), exacerbating already existing racial inequities. By early 2023 much of the country, including California had ended their “COVID-19 State of Emergency” protocols that helped bolster the need for increased public assistance, though total U.S. deaths from COVID-19 have reached over one million people and over 100,000 in California. Still, the disease and its effects, including “Long COVID,” persist. In 2023, some of the final relief programs ended, such as emergency funds for CalFresh recipients and county-based assistance programs implemented in the early days of the pandemic.
As of 2024, the pandemic is no longer considered a “public health emergency,” though we continue to face regular “surges” in cases. Despite calls to reimagine a more equitable and inclusive future, including centering equity in public health, inequalities persists. The data and resources on this page provide insight on how California’s immigrants were, and continue to be, impacted by this global crisis, pointing to the work that lies ahead to ensure a safe, healthy, and equitable future for all.
Resources:
- Key facts about the wealth of immigrant households during the COVID-19 pandemic
- Migration data relevant for the COVID-19 pandemic
- Immigration Detention and Covid-19
- California Immigrant Resilience Fund
- COVID-19: Mapping vulnerable populations in California
- COVID-19 Series: Resources, Data, and Analysis for California
- Immigrants Are LA Campaign
- Immigrant Bail Funds
- Mapping Immigrants At-Risk for COVID-19 and Access to Healthcare
- National Immigrant Law Center: COVID-19 Crisis and Consequences
- New American Economy: Immigration and COVID-19
- 805 UndocuFund
Reports:
- Health Conditions and Health Care among California’s Undocumented Immigrants
- Policy Brief: Pandemic Changes to Medi-Cal and Implications for California’s Immigrant Farmworkers
- Association between immigration enforcement encounters and COVID-19 testing and delays in care: a cross-sectional study of undocumented young adult immigrants in california
- COVID-19’s Effects on U.S. Immigration and Immigrant Communities, Two Years On
- Systemic racism and undocumented Latino migrant laborers during COVID-19: A narrative review and implications for improving occupational health
- The unequal impact of COVID-19: A spotlight on frontline workers, migrants and racial/ethnic minorities
- Immigrant Families in California Faced Barriers Accessing Safety Net Programs in 2021, but Community Organizations Helped Many Enroll
- COVID-19’s Effects on U.S. Immigration and Immigrant Communities, Two Years On
- California’s Labor Market in the Time of COVID-19
- CA 100: The Future of Immigrant Integration Policy and Scenario Report
- Essential Stories: Black Worker COVID-19 Economic Health Impact Survey
- Experts in their Fields: Contributions and Realities of Indigenous Campesinos in California During COVID-19
- COVID-19 and Domestic Workers
- Women Putting in Work: The Economic Self-Determination of Women and Girls in Post-COVID Los Angeles County
- The Survivors: Stories of People Released from ICE Detention During the COVID-19 Pandemic
- Californians Speak: Achieving Equity in COVID-19 Vaccination
- The (in)visible victims of disaster: Understanding the vulnerability of undocumented Latino/a and indigenous immigrants
- No Going Back: Together for an Equitable and Inclusive Los Angeles
- Undocumented During COVID-19: Essential for the Economy but Excluded from Relief
- Reimagined Recovery: Black Workers, the Public Sector, and COVID-19
- Front-line Essential Jobs in California: A Profile of Job and Worker Characteristics
- A Profile of Frontline Workers in the Bay Area
- How Race, Class, and Place Fuel a Pandemic
- COVID-19 County Fact Sheets
Articles:
- Health Coverage by Race and Ethnicity, 2010-2022
- California ICE Detainees’ Hunger Strike is Part of a Long Fight for Freedom
- Key Facts on Health Coverage of Immigrants
- More working Californians slipped into poverty as pandemic aid expired
- COVID disparities grow as California ends state of emergency
- Tracking COVID-19 in California
- Racial Discrimination in the United States
- California’s COVID-19 case count tops 10 million. This is how the latest surge is trending
- Assistance Denied: Examining California’s Emergency Rental Relief Program in the Bay Area
- COVID pulls down Latino, Black, Asian life expectancy more than whites, study says
- Immigration Detention Facility Near Empty in California
- ‘An epidemic of hate’: Anti-Asian hate crimes in California jumped 177% in 2021
- ‘An Enormous Disabling Event’: Long COVID could have inequitable impact on Californians
- Health in California Two Years Into the Pandemic
- Two Years Into the Pandemic, Americans Inch Closer to a New Normal
- With pandemic protections gone, essential workers face omicron alone
- COVID-19 has roared back in California. Essential worker protections have not.
- New research sheds light on COVID-19 inequities in California
- ICE Is Detaining More Immigrants. COVID is Putting Them in Danger
- How the American Rescue Plan Can Support Immigrant Communities
- Centering Undocumented Californians and Migrants in Disaster Resilience
- New map shows deep inequities in L.A.’s COVID-19 vaccine rollout
- New California Vaccine Data Shows Racial Inequities in Distribution
- Asian Americans in San Francisco are dying at alarming rates from COVID-19: Racism is to blame
- Border Report: New Challenges for Day Laborers
- ‘I was naive to think this couldn’t touch my family’: Pacific Islanders hit hard by the coronavirus
- As Covid-19 cases spike, an unprecedented alliance emerges to protect California farmworkers
- How 'abolish ICE' helped bring abolitionist ideas into the mainstream
- 13 Weeks, 832 Reports: COVID-19-Related Hate Against California’s Asian Americans Continues
- The virus and the vulnerable: Latino children suffer higher rates of COVID-19
- ‘We can’t take a break’: Advocates continue to push for release of Adelanto’s immigrant detainees amid COVID-19
- ICE and CBP Agents Were Deployed at Black Lives Matter Protests
- ‘So much worse than I ever thought it would be’: Virus cases skyrocketing among Latinos
- He Went to a Black Lives Matter Protest in Phoenix—and Ended Up in ICE Custody
- ‘We can’t prevent it’: Farmworkers paid low wages fear coronavirus spread in crowded housing
- Close Quarters: California’s overcrowded homes fuel spread of coronavirus among workers
- The undocumented restaurant workers who fed us are being forgotten. This is their struggle
- Track us better: Overlooked Pacific Islanders hit hard by coronavirus
- Coping with the Crisis: Immigrant Families Face ‘el Coronavirus’ and the Broken System That Has Left Them So Vulnerable
- Black Lives Matter Co-Founder: The Immigration Challenge No One Is Talking About