A new survey finds that the COVID-19 pandemic is having a disproportionate impact on the financial well-being of LGBTQ+ Americans.
A report released on Thursday by the Human Rights Campaign and PSB Insights finds 31 percent of Black LGBTQ+ people experienced a reduction of work hours since the beginning of the coronavirus outbreak, as opposed to 28 percent of LGBTQ+ respondents and 23 percent of Black respondents overall.
In addition, 18 percent of Black LGBTQ+ people who responded to the survey say that they lost their jobs during the pandemic — nearly one in five respondents. A slightly smaller share of the total number of LGBTQ+ and Black respondents, 16 percent, report that they have become unemployed.
HRC conducted the survey in partnership with the global custom research and analytics consultancy firm PSB Insights, based on a sample size of 10,000 respondents polled between April and July.
HRC President Alphonso David said the results are further proof of the disproportionate impact that the pandemic is having on the LGBTQ+ community, particularly queer and trans people of color. He noted that Black people, including LGBTQ+ people, are “dying from COVID-19 at extremely alarming rates,” with reporting indicating that Black Americans are twice as likely as their white counterparts to have died from the virus.
“Unfortunately, this new research shows Black people and Black [LGBTQ+] people are suffering disproportionate economic inequities,” David said in a press release. “The data make clear what we have long known: that those living at the intersections of multiply marginalized identities face harsher consequences of the pandemic.”
In its report, HRC notes that LGBTQ+ people are more likely than members of the general population to be employed in professions impacted by coronavirus. For instance, 20 percent of queer and trans adults work in retail and food service.
The HRC survey isn’t the only report published this week which illustrates the unique toll the pandemic has taken on LGBTQ+ people. A “queerantine” study published by the University of Sussex finds that two-thirds of queer and trans people have struggled with depression during the ongoing lockdown period.
The Australian publication Mirage News reports that 46.8 percent of respondents “felt they were unable to control the important things in life,” while 26.1 percent “regularly felt their difficulties were piling up so high they could not be overcome.” “[T]he confinement of lockdown was particularly difficult for younger LGBTQ+ people aged 18-24 who reported significantly poorer mental health than individuals in older age groups,” reports the publication.
The most affected group in the study, however, were trans and nonbinary people, with nearly eight in 10 members of this group claiming they had experienced symptoms of depression during the pandemic.
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