The COVID-19 pandemic laid bare stark structural inequalities in the United States. Federal, state, and local governments responded with policies to help mitigate the potential devastation with varying success. In this issue of RSF, co-published with the JPB Foundation, public policy scholar Steven Raphael, sociologist Daniel Schneider, and an interdisciplinary group of contributors examine the effectiveness of government response on the socioeconomic consequences of the pandemic.
 
The 11 articles in this issue examine the impacts of the COVID-19 pandemic and federal and local responses to the crisis on social safety net usage, unemployment insurance (UI) recipiency, parenting and gender disparities, housing, and experiences with the criminal justice system. Marianne P. Bitler and colleagues find that during the pandemic, participation in the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) increased more in counties that experienced larger employment shocks, however, the SNAP pandemic benefit increases were less generous to Black and Hispanic SNAP participants as compared to White participants. Alex Bell and colleagues show while the UI recipiency rate increased substantially across the U.S. during the pandemic, wealthier states had higher recipiency rates and states with higher shares of Black residents had lower recipiency rates. Liana Christin Landivar and colleagues reveal that remote schooling was associated with reduced employment among mothers compared to fathers and women without children, with Black mothers experiencing the largest reduction in employment. Vincent J. Reina and Yeonhwa Lee find that low-income renters who received emergency rental assistance during the pandemic had lower arrears, a lower likelihood of having rent-related debt, and a lower likelihood of experiencing debilitating anxiety. Samantha Plummer and colleagues show that individuals leaving jail or who had criminal cases during the early phase of the pandemic suffered high levels of housing and food insecurity as well as joblessness, but those with co-occurring mental illness and substance abuse problems experienced the highest levels of material hardship.
 
This issue of RSF sheds light on how the pandemic and the corresponding government response have both reinforced and reshaped socioeconomic inequality in the United States.
 
 

STEVEN RAPHAEL is a professor of public policy, University of California, Berkeley
DANIEL SCHNEIDER is Malcolm Wiener Professor of Social Policy and a professor of sociology, Harvard University
 
CONTRIBUTORS
Anne Kat Alexander, Alex Bell, Emily Benfer, Marianne Bitler, Rocío Calvo, Caitlyn M. Collins, Matthew Desmond, Nick Graetz, Jacob Haas, Heather M. Harris, TJ Hedin, Peter Hepburn, Hilary Hoynes, Timothy Ittner, Olivia Jin, Savannah Knoble, Liana Christin Landivar, Yeonhwa Lee, Renee Louis, Frania Mendoza Lua, Peter Mannino, Roozbeh Moghadam, Angie Monreal, Samantha Plummer, Jasmine Rangel, Alexandrea J. Ravenelle, Vincent J. Reina, Lloyd Rouse,