Health crisis’ unequal effects

Poll: Downturn hurts state’s poor, nonwhites most

The coronavirus pandemic has ravaged California, but its physical and economic devastation has fallen heaviest on lowincome workers and communities of color, according to a new poll.

In more than a third of California households, one or more members have lost their job, a number that rises to 49% among Latinos. Just over half the state’s households have someone who has had their hours trimmed or their pay cut. It’s 60% for African American families and 66% for Latinos.

And for California’s poorest, those with a family income of $40,000 or less, 47% have seen job losses and 63% cutbacks in hours, according to the poll by the nonpartisan Public Policy Institute of California.

“It’s a public health crisis with uneven and unequal effects,” said Mark Baldassare, the institute’s president and director of the poll. “It’s an economic crisis like I’ve never seen before.”

Those same lowincome workers and communities of color are also the most worried about the physical effects of the virus, which has killed more than 100,000 people in the U.S. and sickened 1.8 million.

While 58% of California adults are at least somewhat concerned they will have to be hospitalized because of the coronavirus, that rises to 63% among African Americans, 64% of Asian Americans, 68% of Latinos and 65% of those with household incomes be

low $40,000.

Only 48% of white Californians have the same concerns.

Californians are split almost equally over whether the danger of the coronavirus is behind us (46%) or whether the worst is yet to come (48%). But 69% of African Americans, 53% of Asian Americans and Latinos and 55% of the poorest Californians take that more pessimistic view.

“They’re scared,” Baldassare said. “Many have seen their jobs go away, and the most vulnerable are the groups that are most vulnerable economically.”

That very public concern about what the coronavirus could bring shows up when people are asked if they are more worried the state will lift stayathome orders, business and activity closures and social distancing too quickly or too slowly. Californians overwhelmingly support a goslow approach, 58% to 38%.

The question breaks along political lines, with 82% of Democrats fearing the state will try to return to normal too quickly and 70% of Republicans concerned the state won't move fast enough.

Californians also are in no hurry to change the coronavirus rules that are out there. Fortysix percent think the current restrictions are fine, compared with 25% who want more and 28% who want fewer.

Those numbers run against the drumbeat of calls for rapidly reopening the state, including impassioned pleas from businesses hit hard by the mandatory closures and demonstrators in Sacramento and across the state who argue that now there’s little to be concerned about.

But that’s not a majority opinion, even among those who have taken the heaviest economic hit, Baldassare said.

“Everyone wants the country to come back, but they’re worried that we’re not ready for it yet,” he said. “The findings suggest the priority is dealing with a lifeordeath public health crisis.”

Gov. Gavin Newsom, who has tried to balance the competing concerns of the state’s residents during the pandemic, has seen his support rise dramatically in the past few months. His approval rating is now at 65%, up from 53% in the institute’s February poll and the highest of his term as governor.

Among likely voters, 69% approve of Newsom’s handling of the coronavirus outbreak, and 57% of likely voters think he’s doing a good job with the economy.

The coronavirus pandemic has had little effect on the way Californians view President Trump, Baldassare said, “with the naysayers and supporters unmoved” and the president’s 35% approval rating virtually unchanged from polls in February.

“It’s Gavin Newsom who’s viewed as someone who is out there doing something positive,” Baldassare said.

Newsom has at least 55% support in every region of the state, blue, red or purple. In the Central Valley, where the poll found likely voters split, 47% to 47%, between Trump and Democrat Joe Biden in the November presidential election, the governor’s approval rating soared to 64%.

Baldassare said the governor also should get much of the credit for what might be the most surprising finding in the poll. Despite the damage the coronavirus crisis has done to the state and the worries about the troubles yet to come, 58% of adults believe things in California are generally going in the right direction, up from 50% in a January poll.

By contrast, 70% of adults say the nation is heading into bad financial times over the next year.

The right direction/wrong direction question “is not about the economy as much as it’s about political direction,” Baldassare said. “Compared to where (Californians) see the country going ... they have confidence in the leadership.”

The poll is based on a telephone survey of 1,706 adults, including 1,048 likely voters, taken May 1726. The margin of error is plus or minus 3.5 percentage points for the entire sample and 4.6 points for likely voters.