The COVID-19 pandemic disrupted Americans’ lives and livelihoods from a wide range of socioeconomic and public health perspectives, some racial/ethnic groups more profoundly than others. Beyond the statistics of confirmed cases and deaths, however, we do not have sufficient evidence to explain the racial disparity in pandemic hardships. By using the Household Pulse Survey, a nationally representative data timely deployed by the U.S. Census Bureau, this paper measures and examines five dimensions of pandemic hardships – food insufficiency, employment income loss, housing instability, health problem, and school closure – and their racial disparities. This paper finds a pervasive racial disparity across those individual hardships as well as compounded types of hardships (e.g. income loss with food insufficiency at the same time), with commonly higher odds of experiencing hardship for non-Hispanic blacks and Hispanics than non-Hispanic whites. The effects of small business closures and reopening policy are unequal across racial/ethnic groups, implying that non-Hispanic blacks and Hispanics may be left behind the benefits from state reopening and socioeconomic recovery. These findings can shed new light on the role of demographic and socioeconomic characteristics as well as statewide contextual variables in explaining racial disparities in the pandemic hardships and suggest new possibilities for COVID-19 research.

Housing shortages following the global financial crisis have been accompanied by a new, sharp downturn in rates of residential mobility, largely among renters. The Great Recession precipitated major, lingering housing disruptions, with local mobility declining by one-third in the US from 2010 to 2019. Slow construction despite employment recovery and burgeoning numbers of young Millennials led to intensified competition for vacancies. That ‘friction of competition’ is posited to delay moves and reduce overall mobility rates. Questions investigated are how urban area declines in renter mobility are related to slower housing construction than job growth, fewer rental vacancy chains released by home buyers, concentrations of young adults, and affordability. Analysis is with the American Community Survey for the 100 largest metropolitan areas in the US Mobility constriction is a new indicator of declining housing opportunity. Similar outcomes bear investigation in other cities and nations impacted by housing shortages and the shift to renting.

This study examined the relationship between the receipt of COVID-19 child tax credit and adult mental health problems in the United States, and we explored whether and the extent to which a wide range of spending patterns of the credit—15 patterns regarding basic necessities, child education, and household expenditure—mediated the relationship. We used COVID-19-specialized data from the U.S. Census Bureau’s Household Pulse Survey, a representative population sample (N = 98,026) of adult respondents (18 and older) who participated between 21 July 2021 and 11 July 2022. By conducting mediation analyses with logistic regression, we found relationships between the credit and lower levels of anxiety (odds ratio [OR] = 0.914; 95% confidence interval [CI] = 0.879, 0.952). The OR was substantially mediated by spending on basic necessities such as food and housing costs (proportion mediated = 46% and 44%, respectively). The mediating role was relatively moderate in the case of spending on child education and household expenditure. We also found that spending the credit on savings or investments reduces the effect of the child tax credit on anxiety (−40%) while donations or giving to family were not a significant mediator. Findings on depression were consistent with anxiety. The child tax credit–depression relationships were substantially mediated by spending on food and housing (proportion mediated = 53% and 70%). These mediation analyses suggested that different patterns of credit spending are important mediators of the relationship between the receipt of the child tax credit and mental illnesses. Public health approaches to improve adult mental health during and after the COVID-19 pandemic need to consider the notable mediating role of spending patterns.

This study examines the relationship between statewide contexts and individuals’ COVID-19 vaccine hesitancy by using the Household Pulse Survey, a national and near real-time data timely deployed by the U.S. Census Bureau. Controlling for the individual- and state-level variables in addition to temporal effect, this study finds that racial and ethnic minorities and COVID-19-infected people are more hesitant than their counterparts to receive a vaccine. Individuals who reside in a state where more stringent social distancing measures – particularly mask mandate – are implemented and vaccine rollout conditions are better appear to be less hesitant to receive a COVID-19 vaccine. Vulnerable subpopulation groups such as people of color and COVID-19-infected individuals are more hesitant to vaccine uptake even if regional circumstances are equal. These findings suggest that the continuation and extension of vaccine campaigns at the regional as well as individual levels are all important for expediting COVID-19 vaccination and reducing vaccine hesitancy as the world is in the middle of the third year of the pandemic.