and Congress beginning in January. In the
meantime, the topic is sure to drive much of
the campaign rhetoric as the presidential race
moves toward the November election.
Alone among advanced economies, the United
States doesn’t require employers to grant sick
leave and paid time off. America’s system for
providing unemployment aid, a patchwork of
state programs, isn’t as generous or efficient as
European government programs that subsidize
wages or provide safeguards to limit layoffs.
America’s minimum wages also lag far behind
those in most of Europe, though many states
have raised their minimums in recent years.
In 2018, the Organization for Economic
Cooperation and Development concluded that
the U.S. national minimum wage paid 33 cents
for every $1 earned by workers in the middle
of the earnings spectrum. That contrasted with
46 cents in Germany, 54 cents in the United
Kingdom and 62 cents in France.
The coronavirus has struck at the most
vulnerable. African-Americans account for
42% of the nearly 3,300 COVID-19 deaths that
the press reviewed — twice their share of the
population in the areas covered by the analysis.
Blacks as a group earn less, endure higher
rates of unemployment and have less access
to health care than other Americans. They also
suffer disproportionately from the underlying
conditions that make them more vulnerable to
COVID-19: Diabetes, obesity, asthma.
The financial pain, too, has landed hardest on
the neediest as the economy locks down to
fight the outbreak. The United States last month
lost 713,000 private sector jobs. Jobs in leisure