The notion of re-opening our economy presumes that, prior to COVID-19, the U.S. economy was open for every American. People of color have a different economic reality. While every American continues to face the danger of infection and death from the coronavirus, many Americans of low- to-moderate income struggle with the additional challenge of an economy that never, or rarely, worked for them or for their families in the first place. In our pre-COVID-19 economy, far too often these Americans had to choose between paying medical bills and rent or putting food on the table. And they were the least resilient to withstand the fluctuations of the American economy, because they were usually the workers who were last hired and first fired.
