Job loss and psychological distress during the COVID‐19 pandemic: Longitudinal Analysis from residents in nine predominantly African American low‐income neighborhoods
研究分析了2013至2020年间匹兹堡九个低收入非裔社区居民失业与心理困扰的关系，发现疫情期间失业者若无严重财务担忧，心理困扰反而减轻，有重要政策启示。
While psychological distress is a common sequelae of job loss, how that relationship continued during the COVID-19 pandemic is unclear, for example, given higher health risk to working due to disease exposure. This paper examines changes in psychological distress depending on job loss among a cohort of randomly selected residents living in nine predominantly African American low-income neighborhoods in Pittsburgh PA across four waves between 2013 and 2020. Between 2013 and 2016, we found an increase in psychological distress after job loss in line with the literature. In contrast, between 2018 and 2020 we found change in psychological distress did not differ by employment loss. However, residents who had financial concerns and lost their jobs had the largest increases in psychological distress, while residents who did not have serious financial concerns-potentially due to public assistance-but experienced job loss had no increase in distress, a better outcome even than those that retained their jobs. Using partial identification, we find job loss during the pandemic decreased psychological distress for those without serious financial concerns. This has important policy implications for how high-risk persons within low-income communities are identified and supported, as well as what type of public assistance may help.