Full Citation
Title: U.S. Racial Inequality May Be as Deadly as COVID-19
Citation Type: Working Paper
Publication Year: 2020
ISBN:
ISSN:
DOI: https://doi.org/10.18128/MPC2020-04.v2
NSFID:
PMCID:
PMID:
Abstract: The Covid-19 pandemic is causing a catastrophic increase in U.S. mortality. How does the scale of this pandemic compare to another U.S. catastrophe: racial inequality? Using demographic models, I estimate how many excess white deaths would raise U.S. white mortality to the bestever (lowest) U.S. Black level under alternative, plausible assumptions about the age patterning of excess mortality in 2020. I find that 400,000 excess white deaths would be needed to equal the best mortality ever recorded among Blacks. For white mortality in 2020 to reach levels that Blacks experience outside of pandemics, current Covid-19 mortality levels would need to increase by a factor of nearly 6. Moreover, white life expectancy in 2020 will remain higher than Black life expectancy has ever been unless nearly 700,000 excess white deaths occur. Even amid Covid-19, U.S. white mortality is likely to be less than what U.S. Blacks have experienced every year. I argue that, if Black disadvantage operates every year on the scale of whites’ experience of Covid-19, then so too should the tools we deploy to fight it. Our imagination and social ambition should not be limited by how accustomed the U.S. is to profound racial inequality.
Url: https://assets.ipums.org/_files/mpc/wp2020-04.pdf
User Submitted?: No
Authors: Wrigley-Field, Elizabeth
Series Title: MPC Working Paper
Publication Number: 2020-04
Institution: University of Minnesota
Pages: 1-31
Publisher Location:
Data Collections: IPUMS USA
Topics: Fertility and Mortality, Health, Race and Ethnicity
Countries: