Covid's financial toll on Black, Hispanic communities
Plus: American to start nonstop flights from Charlotte to Honolulu; how city officials are selling their 'mobility plan'; a lawyer explains whether companies can require Covid vaccines
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Serious disparities exist for Black, Latino residents as they navigate the pandemic; ‘look no further than who we are feeding,’ says Loaves & Fishes director
Aaron Garcia loads a box of free food into a car at the Loaves & Fishes pop-up food share at Freedom Communities-Charlotte on Tuckaseegee Road. The organization's mobile pantries are taking the place of permanent ones during the coronavirus pandemic.
Editor’s note: This article is part of a collaborative series examining Covid-19’s economic effect on Black and Latino communities in Charlotte. The series is produced through a collaboration among WFAE, The Charlotte Ledger, Q City Metro and La Noticia. It is supported by funds from Facebook, the N.C. Local News Lab Fund, Google and WFAE members.
By David Boraks, Maria Ramirez Uribe and Gracyn Doctor
Statistics show that people of color are at greater risk for health complications of coronavirus because of underlying systemic and social factors. There's a similar disparity when it comes to its effect on family finances, plainly visible wherever people are seeking help.
Take Charlotte's largely African-American west side, where a long line of cars waited one day last week at a drive-in food pantry set up by Loaves & Fishes. West side resident Alisa Lockhart came to collect one of the free boxes of vegetables, meat and bread.
“I'm here today picking up food for my family,” Lockhart said. “I have an elderly father that I support. And so the produce, the food, the things that I pick up here, I’m able to help serve him and just make sure he has what he needs,” Lockhart said.
Her father isn't the only one in need. Lockhart said she's lucky she still has an office job at a financial services company. But several family members are out of work. Her daughter lost a job with Amazon Prime. A nephew got laid off from his third-shift job on the loading dock at a trucking company, when business fell off during the shut down.
“So those are the different effects that we're dealing with in my immediate family,” she said.
Multiply that many times and you have a picture of the pandemic's economic downside for Black and Latino residents.
“If you're questioning whether racial inequities exist in our community, look no further than who we are feeding,” said Tina Postel, executive director of Loaves & Fishes, which runs 41 food pantries in Mecklenburg County. Because of Covid, the organization closed its brick-and-mortar pantries, and shifted to drive-through pickups like the one last week off Tuckaseegee Road.
Postel said 85% of Loaves & Fishes clients right now are people of color, up from 80% last year. Some 46% are Black and 39% are Latino. They are “people who are living in marginalized communities, aren't making a livable wage, and are struggling to put food on the table,” she said.
Charlotte's Latin American Coalition is also seeing an increase in demand for services.
The coalition’s helpline got about 3,000 calls in the first few months, and continues to get 200 to 250 calls a week specifically related to Covid assistance, said coalition director Jose Hernandez-Paris. Because Latino residents are more likely to rent than own their homes, evictions are a big concern, he said.
“Even though there are (eviction) moratoriums and things like that, people were still getting evicted. People (are) calling our helpline from their cars saying, ‘I’m in my car with two kids and I have nowhere to go. We just got kicked out,’” said Hernandez-Paris.
Unemployment on the rise
Like Alisa Lockhart's family, many people of color are dealing with lost jobs or lost wages as their jobs are eliminated, hours are cut or their small businesses fail. And that’s showing up in the numbers, too.
Black residents accounted for the largest percentage of ongoing unemployment claims in North Carolina as of September — 43%, according to the state Unemployment Insurance Claims Dashboard. But Black residents are just 22% of the statewide population overall.
White residents made 42.6% of claims, even though they are 70% of the population. Hispanic residents were 6.6% of claims, but 9.8% of the population. More than half of claims are related to Covid, according to state officials.
A Harvard University survey last spring found that 58% of Hispanic households and 53% of Black households saw their incomes fall in the first few months of the pandemic. By contrast, only 39% of white households and 44% of Asian households reported losing income.
Even as the economy has improved slightly this fall, unemployment rates among Black and Latino workers are well above the national average. The national unemployment rate was 6.9% in October. The rate among Black workers was 10.8%. Among Latinos it was 8.8%. For whites, it was 6%.
Small businesses struggling, too
Just as with households, Black and Latino-owned businesses have also suffered amid the coronavirus pandemic.
A Stanford University study found that 32% of Latino-owned businesses and 41% of Black-owned businesses across the country vanished between February and April 2020. That’s compared to 17% of white-owned business. Losses were higher than the national average because many of those businesses were concentrated in the restaurant, hotel and transportation industries, which were devastated by the shutdowns that swept across the country.
In Mecklenburg County, specific numbers are hard to come by. But Rocio Gonzalez of the Latin American Chamber of Commerce estimated that 10% to 15% of the organization's 400 members have gone out of business since March.
Many others have said they can't afford to keep paying the group’s annual dues, which range from $150 for a microbusiness to $1,000 for a corporation.
For some businesses, Covid has forced new business models. “We have seen many of them switch and shift to producing items that are needed right now,” Gonzalez said. She mentioned a printing company that used to print pamphlets and booklets for events that now makes fliers related to Covid safety.
The Latin-American Chamber itself has shifted from education and advocacy for businesses to running food distribution programs in the Latino community, thanks to city and private grants.
The quest for federal aid
Getting federal assistance also has been difficult, though it’s hard to quantify the problem.
When federal officials released data in July showing which local businesses got Paycheck Protection Program loans, most business owners didn't specify a race or ethnicity. Among the 8% who did so in Charlotte, 187 listed themselves as white, 19 Asian, six Black and four Hispanic. Fewer than 3% were Black-owned businesses and fewer than 2% were Latino-owned businesses.
Nationwide, just 14% of business owners provided their race or ethnicity, according to the Center For Public Integrity. Of that, fewer than 2% of the loans went to Black-owned businesses and 6.6% went to Latino-owned businesses nationwide.
Even with limited data, it appears Black and Hispanic-owned businesses did not get PPP loans at the same rates as other groups. Again, that likely can be traced back to the challenges these business owners faced before the pandemic. Durham-based research group The Center For Responsible Lending found that banks gave loans to larger businesses and businesses they already had a relationship with.
Charlotte Mecklenburg Black Chamber of Commerce Director Shante Williams said those relationships are critical.
“If you are a larger company, you probably already had a banking relationship,” Williams said. “You probably already had your financial documents ready. The banker may even have called you and said, ‘Hey, this thing’s come in, we’re gonna have you first in line.’”
When the chamber saw Black businesses not getting PPP loans, it stepped in to help by creating its own local grant program. But the chamber was only able to help 15 or 20 businesses in the Charlotte area, which Williams said was only a drop in the bucket.
And, Williams said, a lot of Black businesses went into the pandemic heavily undercapitalized.
“We call it survival mode, really staying in the, ‘doing enough to make sure that I can keep the business running and maybe pay myself something, but not thriving,’” said Williams.
To keep their businesses running, Williams said a lot of owners sold equipment, got “side hustles,” or used money they had been saving for years.
Business owners drain their savings
Twenty years ago, Mario Ramirez was among a surge of Latino immigrants who moved to North Carolina seeking better lives. Ramirez opened a photography and videography business in Charlotte focused on events like weddings and birthday parties.
Then came the coronavirus.
The first case of Covid was identified in North Carolina on March 3. Nine days later, on March 12, Gov. Roy Cooper urged communities, businesses and residents to cancel events. Then Cooper issued an executive order banning large gatherings of 100 or more. Ramirez’s photography business dried up as weddings and parties were canceled.
“When I realized this wasn’t going to blow over so quickly, it felt like I was falling into an abyss both emotionally and economically. And I told myself, ‘You have to try to rescue this in the best way possible,’” Ramirez said. “But it was very difficult both emotionally and economically. It put me against the wall.”
Ramirez has made it through the pandemic so far. He squirreled away some savings that he dipped into during the shutdown.
“And that’s what helped me survive during those difficult months,” he said. “Without that, I don’t know where I would be today.”
Needed: Money and patience
With the virus continuing to spread this fall, some Black and Latino business owners and workers are worried about the future.
Mario Ramirez’s photography business took a huge hit, but says work is picking up. He’s signing contracts for events in 2021, and that is giving him hope. But Ramirez said he is still not back to where he wants to be.
“We still have that feeling of doubting whether or not they will happen, but at least right now, we’re growing — slowly, but I think we’re growing,” he said.
Shante Williams of the Charlotte Mecklenburg Black Chamber of Commerce is telling business owners they are going to need “money and patience.”
“It takes money to run a business,” she said. “We went through this phased approach of reopening, it takes money to flip the light back on.”
Editor’s note: Because of the holidays, The Ledger will be on a reduced publishing schedule the next two weeks. Oh, we’ll be around — just not quite as frequently as we spend time with our families and recharge for 2021.
Today’s supporting sponsors are T.R. Lawing Realty…
… and Landon A. Dunn, Attorney at Law in Matthews:
Selling Charlotte’s not-a-transit plan
The push for a tax increase for transit is only in its early stages, but we’re already starting to see the outlines of how it is going to be marketed — a vital piece of the equation, as the plan will need the support of the General Assembly and the voting public.
Out: A sales tax increase for light rail
In: A one-cent investment for a better future
Last week, a task force appointed by Mayor Vi Lyles presented the plan to the City Council. The details remain to be ironed out, but the idea is an $8B-$12B plan that pays for light rail, greenways, bike lanes, bus service and roads through a mix of state and federal funding and increasing the local sales tax. Organizers are pushing for a referendum in November 2021.
In an insightful piece on Tuesday — “Transit discussion doesn’t center on moving people” — friend-of-The-Ledger Ely Portillo of UNC Charlotte’s Urban Institute observes:
there’s been a lot more talk about moving up the socioeconomic ladder than moving around the city. …
Those in favor of the sales tax increase are emphasizing the merits of transit and mobility along a variety of dimensions — social, environmental, and economic — with less focus on the relative merits of, say, one kind of rail over another, or how many passengers articulated buses in a dedicated lane can carry per hour. That’s partly because transit and transportation are about more than just getting around, and partly because in a city where 77% of us drive to work alone and just 3.4% ride transit, it could be easy for people to turn up their noses at a transit plan.
As [task force chairman Harvey] Gantt said Monday, the plan’s goals include “jobs creation, improving upward mobility, a cleaner environment.” So, in the run-up to the referendum, expect to hear a lot about transit, but not so much about specific modes of getting around.
He quotes City Council member Dimple Ajmera as saying: “This is an opportunity for us to revitalize many of our neighborhoods. This is an economic opportunity creator.”
We’d take the analysis a step further and note that not only is it not being called a “transit plan” — officials seem to prefer “mobility plan” as a short description — but the cost is typically called “one cent.” Who wouldn’t give a cent for a better life?
It’s true that the proposal would take the county’s sales tax to 8.25% from 7.25%, an increase of 1 percentage point. It’s also true that that increase represents a 13.8% increase in the sales tax. (The increase would exclude groceries and medicine, to lessen the burden, which tends to fall proportionally more on low-income residents.)
How much more would residents pay? Let’s do some back-of-the-envelope math: Supporters say it would raise $6.6B over 30 years, or $220M a year. There are about 852,000 adult residents in Mecklenburg County, so that’s $258 per year per adult, on average. OK, yes, the actual average is going to be less, because sales taxes here are also paid by out-of-state business travelers, Panthers fans who come down for the day from Hickory and South End party-goers from Rock Hill.
But Mecklenburg residents will pay most of any Mecklenburg sales tax increase. Er, make that a Mecklenburg one-cent investment. —TM
Ask a lawyer: Will employees be required to get the Covid vaccine?
New guidance came out last week for employers regarding the Covid vaccine. And it’s complicated.
So we turned to employment lawyer Meredith Jeffries of Alexander Ricks in Charlotte to break it down. Here’s what she told us:
The Equal Employment Opportunity Commission issued its guidance on mandatory Covid-19 vaccinations on Dec. 16. Employers can require Covid-19 vaccines if the employer believes them necessary to avoid “a direct threat to the health or safety” of co-workers, customers or others who interact with the employee in the workplace.
However, employers requiring vaccines must individually evaluate accommodation requests of employees seeking to opt out of vaccination based either on a disability protected by the Americans With Disabilities Act or a sincerely held religious belief protected by Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964. Accommodations could include remote work, continuation of mask wearing/social distancing, or other creative solutions, and the EEOC has advised that the inquiry will involve a workplace, industry and employee-specific analysis.
Determining what constitutes a reasonable accommodation that would not pose an undue hardship to the employer and the circumstances under which an unvaccinated employee can be legally excluded from the workplace can involve a complex analysis fraught with legal pitfalls. As a result, most of our clients outside of the healthcare and elder care industries are planning to recommend a vaccine as one of many tools to reduce the spread of Covid-19, rather than to require vaccination.
And if you think that sounds complex, the legal fun is just beginning because of other potential issues springing from workers and Covid vaccines, Jeffries says:
The EEOC’s guidance speaks only to disability and religion discrimination and accommodation issues, and there will be other challenges as the vaccine becomes available and this plays out, such as
the advantages and risks of employer-administered onsite vaccinations
liability for the yet-unknown potential side effects of mandated vaccinations
potential workers’ compensation claims for employees who suffer an adverse reaction to the vaccine
implications for non-disabled pregnant employees
Expect to hear more as the vaccine becomes more widely available in the coming months. —TM
In brief:
Aloha, Hawaii: American Airlines will begin direct flights from Charlotte to Honolulu this summer, from May 6 to Sept. 7. The 4,700 mile flight will take 10 hours westbound and nine hours eastbound, and the airline will run the route six to seven days a week. The Ledger found flights in early June for as low as $763. (One Mile At A Time)
New $900B stimulus deal: Congressional leaders finally reached an agreement on a $900B Covid relief package Sunday. It includes $600 stimulus checks for millions of Americans (although smaller checks for those who made more than $75,000 in 2019, and no checks for those who made more than $99,000) an extension of unemployment benefits of up to $300 per week, and a revival of the Paycheck Protection Program. The agreement is also expected to extend a moratorium on evictions through January. Both chambers of Congress are expected to vote on the bill today. (Washington Post)
How to see the celestial rendezvous tonight: Something exciting for sky gazers — if you look skyward for a couple of hours tonight, you’ll get to see “the great conjunction” of our solar system’s two biggest planets, Jupiter and Saturn. Those two planets haven’t been this close together and this visible to the naked eye in almost 800 years, and it won’t happen again until 2080. To spot the planets, go out at dusk (around 5:15 p.m.) and look to the southwest horizon. The conjunction will be visible until Jupiter and Saturn set below the horizon around 7:30 p.m. (WFAE)
N.C. unemployment holds steady: North Carolina’s unemployment rate stayed unchanged in November, at a pandemic low of 6.2%, the N.C. Commerce Department reported Friday. The state added 16,300 private-sector and 200 government jobs from October to November. Top industries adding jobs were the leisure and hospitality sector which saw a net gain of 8,000 jobs, along with 3,200 jobs in construction and 2,100 jobs in education and health services. (Winston-Salem Journal)
Herrin Ice property sells for $17M: Charlotte developer Grubb Properties closed on the 10.5-acre Herrin Ice site on 36th St. in NoDa, paying $17M and moving ahead with plans to build apartments, offices and retail space. The Herrin family said it’s looking for places to move the 91-year-old company, as well as exploring merger and acquisition options. (Biz Journal) (Agenda)
Nursing home workers next on vaccine list: North Carolina health officials said the state will receive 61,425 doses of Pfizer's vaccine from the federal government next week, and it expects to get 175,900 doses of Moderna's newly approved coronavirus vaccine. Some 96,000 of those Moderna doses will go to long-term care facilities. Under the state’s plan, hospital workers have access to the immunizations first, followed by workers in long-term care facilities and then the residents of those facilities. (WFAE)
Arts organizations get $2.1M in grants: The John S. and James L. Knight Foundation has committed $2.1M to help five Charlotte’s arts and culture groups increase diversity and expand their reach. The groups include: Harvey B. Gantt Center for African-American Arts + Culture, Levine Museum of the New South, Que-OS, Queen City New Play Initiative and JazzArts Charlotte. (Q City Metro)
Wells Fargo names new digital banking chief: Wells Fargo has hired former Bank of America executive Michelle Moore as digital platform leader. Moore spent 15 years at Bank of America as head of digital banking and advanced solutions, overseeing the bank’s mobile and online strategy. (Biz Journal)
Loves me some internet — real estate edition
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Executive editor: Tony Mecia; Managing editor: Cristina Bolling; Contributing editor: Tim Whitmire, CXN Advisory; Reporting intern: David Griffith