The COVID-19 pandemic’s impact in the United States has exposed long-standing inequities by race, ethnicity, and income.¹

A Commonwealth Fund analysis from April showed that confirmed COVID-19 cases and deaths were disproportionately higher in communities with larger Black populations.² Contributing to these poorer outcomes is the far greater likelihood Black and Latino Americans live in poverty and reside in neighborhoods with overcrowded households, air pollution, and inadequate access to health care.³ Beyond its toll on physical health, the pandemic has pushed the U.S. into an economic recession, which typically impacts already disadvantaged people more severely than the rest of society.⁴

As part of a series of Commonwealth Fund investigations into the disparate impacts of COVID-19, we analyzed the U.S. responses to the Fund’s 2020 International Health Policy COVID-19 Supplement Survey, fielded in the U.S. and nine other countries from March 30 to May 25, 2020. The survey in the U.S. was conducted among a nationally representative sample of adults age 18 and older, including oversamples of adults who identified as Black and Latino.

The analysis shows that Americans’ experience of economic hardship, their mental health concerns, and their opinion of government leaders during the pandemic varied by race, gender, and income.

Survey Highlights

• More than half of Latino and nearly half of Black survey respondents reported experiencing an economic challenge because of the pandemic — substantially more than the 21 percent of white respondents.
• Thirty-nine percent of women reported significant mental health concerns related to COVID-19, 13 percentage points higher than men. For people with low income, the rate of mental health concerns was nearly 20 points higher than the rate for people with high income.
• Both Black and Latino respondents reported pandemic-related mental health concerns at a rate approximately 10 points higher than whites.
• Compared to health care providers, state and local officials and the president received lower marks in their response to the pandemic. Black survey respondents held the least favorable views of government leaders’ actions.

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