Resumen de Government Employees’ Experience and Expectation of COVID-19 Hardships: The Moderating Role of Gender and Race in the United States

JungHo Park, Yongjin Ahn

• This article examines government employees’ experience and expectation of socioeconomic hardships during the COVID-19 pandemic—employment income loss, housing instability, and food insufficiency—by focusing on the role of gender and race.

  Employing the Household Pulse Survey, a nationally representative and near real-time pandemic data deployed by the U.S.

  Census Bureau, we find that government employees were less affected by the pandemic than non-government employees across socioeconomic hardships. However, female and racial minorities, when investigated within government employees, have a worse experience and expectation of pandemic hardships than men and non-Hispanic Whites. Our findings suggest a clear gender gap and racial disparities in the experience and expectation of pandemic hardships