Home life is also increasingly disrupted. Surveys from the Census Bureau conducted in
September—after enhanced unemployment benefits had lapsed—showed that 30% of
households with children, headed by parents without high-school degrees, reported not
having had enough to eat in the preceding week. Of less educated families (a proxy for
the less well paid), 21% reported missing last month’s rent and a similar share thought
it very likely that they would be evicted in the coming two months. Partly because job
losses have been more pronounced, indicators of parental mental distress, such as
depression and anxiety, have also increased disproportionately. Food, housing and
parental instability are harbingers of worse behaviour in schools, poorer testing
outcomes and, eventually, lower rates of high-school graduation and college completion.
The sooner parents are able to return to work and children to in-person schooling, the
less unequal the fallout. The sorts of insulating policies that the federal government
might pass to cushion the blow—such as a national tutoring corps for those unable to
afford such help, or wider access to laptops—are unlikely to become reality because of
the usual partisan antipathy. State and city governments will be sidelined with their
own budgetary crises. Instead, America’s decentralised education system will have to
tackle these problems piecemeal, district by district. As with much else afflicting the
children of covid-19, the lack of a policy response will lead to even greater inequality.
The repercussions will linger for years.
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