The pandemic exacerbated inequality: Professor of Economics

Donald Mar, San Francisco State University Emeritus Professor of Economics joins the Yahoo Finance Live panel to break down the latest jobs report numbers.

Video Transcript

ZACK GUZMAN: Welcome back to Yahoo Finance Live. We're continuing to break down that disappointing April jobs report, what Indeed called perhaps the most disappointing jobs report of all time. When you look at the headline numbers there, unemployment ticking higher, 6.1% versus the 5.8% expected and the 6% we got in March. The headline numbers there also when you dig in deeper, on a ratio level, shows an elevated 9.7% unemployment rate for Black Americans, 7.9% for Hispanics, 5.7% for Asians.

Though when you dig in deeper to that Asian unemployment rate, interesting to see the length and how it differs from the Great Recession, just about a decade-- a bit over a decade ago. And for more on that, I want to bring on our next guest here with us. That would be Donald Mar, San Francisco State University Emeritus Professor of Economics joins us right now. And Professor Mar, appreciate you taking the time here to chat. Because on the racial front, we've been talking about unequal recoveries for quite some time. But what stands out to you as different this time around, relative to the Great Recession?

DONALD MAR: Well, I want to say something about the Asian-Americans overall. Everybody knows that it's a fairly diverse group. And during things like a pandemic shutdown, that the inequality amongst groups gets exacerbated. And so, we look at Asian-Americans, we can see certain manifestations of that inequality. And one of them is the higher unemployment rates that we see.

This is very different from the Great Recession. And actually, the past history of the last two decades where the Asian-American unemployment rate was very similar to that of, let's say, non-Hispanic whites in the United States. But with this COVID downturn, we see that the unemployment rate of Asians goes up by 1% or 2% above that of, let's say, non-Hispanic whites. So this is different from past downturns that we've observed.

AKIKO FUJITA: Well, what has contributed to that uptick, though?

DONALD MAR: A lot of that is due to the downturn being targeted more towards certain industries and how some of the states may have responded to those changes. For example, you've been talking about the downturns in three different types of industries-- the hotel, leisure industry, the retail industry, and the other services industries. And those things have hurt Asian-Americans more. In addition, Asians are concentrated in certain states in the US and that these states [INAUDIBLE] for different reasons [INAUDIBLE] suffered more in terms of unemployment. And then, finally, I think there's been a big downturn in Asian-American small businesses, which are large employers, but of Asian-Americans.

ZACK GUZMAN: Yeah, when we think about maybe the measures taken to make workers whole through all this, too-- you know, blanket unemployment protections there might obviously help those who are more impacted. When you think about the rest of the recovery, is there more that would stand out to you as maybe a way to make it more centered to those who have been hardest hit in this slower and slower recovery, as we watch this play out?

DONALD MAR: Well, I think you've identified an issue that's out there. Again, the long-term unemployment, but that's defined as over 27 weeks of being unemployed is very high for Asian-Americans. Looking at some of the data for this last quarter from January to March of 2021, 50% of the unemployed Asians are in this long duration category. We've also seen some research, which it seems to show that maybe outreach and access to some of these federal programs to alleviate some of the impacts of the pandemic haven't quite reached all the segments of the population equally. And so, there may be better outreach that could be done, things like locating it in Asian-American communities, language issues. Things like that could be improved, I think.

ZACK GUZMAN: Yeah, we've seen similar pushes on the vaccine front as well. But Donald Mar, San Francisco State University Emeritus Professor of Economics, appreciate you hopping on to chat with us today. Be well.