By the Numbers: New Data Dashboard from UnidosUS Shows Deadly and Disproportionate Impact of COVID-19 on Latinos

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Tool for journalists, researchers, and policymakers includes economic, health and educational findings at both national and state levels

WASHINGTON, DC— UnidosUS today released an interactive dashboard — By the Numbers: Latinos in the Time of Coronavirus — that shows the deadly and disproportionate impact of COVID-19 on Latinos nationally as well as in Arizona, California, Colorado, Florida, Nevada, and Texas.

Accurate statistics that show how Latinos’ health and financial security have been affected are more critical than ever. These numbers are crucial not only for journalists and researchers to document and better understand the pandemic’s impact, but also to inform policymakers and legislators when they consider how to best achieve an equitable recovery that includes Latino communities.

Designed by the Population Reference Bureau, the dashboard includes data from the U.S. Census Bureau’s experimental Household Pulse Survey. Categories include bi-weekly race and ethnicity comparisons for loss of income, health insurance coverage, and food insufficiency, and others, including projections for the number of COVID-19 cases and deaths through the end of 2021.

Some of the key findings available include:

  • Nationally, 57.8 percent of Latinos reported that, since March, they or someone in their household had suffered a loss of income, compared to 41 percent of Whites, the highest rate of any racial or ethnic group in the U.S.
  • Nationally, 1 in 5 Latino households with children reports not having enough food to eat, compared to 1 in 10 non-Hispanic White households with children.
  • In Texas, 1 in 3 Latino adults doesn’t have health insurance, compared to the state average of 1 in 4 adults and 1 in 6 non-Hispanic White adults.
  • Latinos nationally are twice as likely (21 percent) as non-Hispanic Whites (11 percent) to live in a household that missed a rent payment in the previous month.
  • In Arizona, 65 percent of households with Latino children reported having classes cancelled in June due to COVID-19, compared to only 45 percent of their non-Hispanic White peers.

The pandemic has worsened structural inequality and laid bare the cracks in our social safety net, but it does not have to be this way. There are important decisions and actions that national leaders must take to ensure the Latino community—and the country—can heal and thrive. UnidosUS hopes this data dashboard can be a vital source of data on the impact of COVID-19 on Latinos as the United States enters the third—and possibly worst—phase of the pandemic.