By Marisa Kendall
Despite the massive hit the economy took during the COVID-19 crisis, (click here) a new study suggests the pandemic didn’t push huge numbers of Bay Area residents into financial trouble — a surprising finding that experts say highlights the success of emergency cash assistance programs.
Before COVID hit, 29% of people who responded to a Tipping Point Community survey reported having a hard time making ends meet. Ten months into the pandemic, that number had barely budged — 31% of people reported struggling. Similarly, the study found the Bay Area’s poverty rate didn’t jump — it rose from 17% in 2018 to 18% in early 2021.
Experts say that’s because federal stimulus payments, increases in unemployment benefits and nonprofit aid programs prevented huge swaths of the population from falling into poverty — a win they hope will push policymakers to enact more long-term cash assistance programs. But not everyone made it out unscathed. Low-income residents and residents of color were far more likely to suffer financial hardships as a result of the pandemic.
“The good news is the poverty rate didn’t increase, didn’t go skyrocketing the way we all thought it was going to,” said Sam Cobbs, CEO of Tipping Point Community. “The bad news is those people who were struggling before the pandemic are struggling even more now.”...
