COVID didn’t increase poverty in the Bay Area, new report says
“Experts say that’s because federal stimulus payments, increases in unemployment benefits and nonprofit aid programs prevented huge swaths of the population from falling into poverty — a win they hope will push policymakers to enact more long-term cash assistance programs. But not everyone made it out unscathed. Low-income residents and residents of color were far more likely to suffer financial hardships as a result of the pandemic.
‘The good news is the poverty rate didn’t increase, didn’t go skyrocketing the way we all thought it was going to,’ said Sam Cobbs, CEO of Tipping Point Community. ‘The bad news is those people who were struggling before the pandemic are struggling even more now.'”