Still going in to work in Pennsylvania amid the coronavirus?
Chances are, you’re a low-wage worker, data show.
In the earliest days of the coronavirus outbreak, when public officials scrambled to close schools and businesses, a Facebook user lamented the inequity of the quarantine that Gov. Tom Wolf had imposed on Pennsylvanians.
“The poor are, ironically, the most likely to be employed in the industries deemed ‘essential’ while their upper-class peers are freed to bunker down for weeks until the first death wave passes,” the Facebook user wrote on March 18.
The Facebook user is right. The vast majority of workers in the life-sustaining industries earn low and working-class wages.
A quarter of Pennsylvania’s essential workers make less than $30,000 annually, and two-thirds make less than the state’s household median income of $60,000, raising questions about whether the people keeping the rest of society afloat are being sufficiently protected and compensated.
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Link: https://www.inquirer.com/politics/essential-grocery-work-home-pennsylvania-true-false-20200421.html