Eligible Latino workers are less likely to access unemployment benefits. Here’s why
Laiza Negrete’s in-laws couldn’t figure out how to apply for unemployment last year when COVID-19 put them out of work from their hospitality jobs at King’s Beach on Lake Tahoe.
Both of them are Mexican immigrants who have lived in California for more than 30 years. They had trouble with the unfamiliar system.
“They just called and said, ‘Can you help us apply?’” said Negrete, 38, of Orangevale. “A simple task of creating a username and password is something that they alone don’t feel comfortable doing.”
A new study underscores how a lack of broadband internet access and computer proficiency prevents many California Hispanic workers from accessing unemployment benefits, even as Latino communities face disproportionate job losses.
“The digital divide is great within our (the Latino) community,” said Christopher Sanchez, a policy advocate for the Western Center on Law & Poverty in Sacramento.
Lack of internet and computer access
Eligible California Hispanic workers are less likely than others to receive unemployment insurance benefits, and a lack of access to broadband internet and computers may be one of the key reasons, according to a study released last week by the California Policy Lab.
“While rates of benefit receipts have risen beyond historic levels, counties with larger shares of Hispanic residents tended to see a lower share of unemployed workers receive regular unemployment insurance benefits,” said Till von Wachter, faculty director of the nonpartisan research group.
Among them:
▪ Tulare County., Eighty percent of unemployed or underemployed workers received unemployment payments. Hispanics are an estimated 65.6% of the population.
▪ Merced County. The rate of unemployed or underemployed workers receiving unemployment was 78.6% at the end of the year. The Hispanic population is about 61%.
▪ Stanislaus County. About 82% of unemployed or underemployed people are getting regular unemployment insurance benefits. The Hispanic population is about 47.6%.
Counties with smaller Hispanic populations tended to have bigger proportions of unemployment recipients.
In Sacramento County, where the Latino population is 23.6%, the unemployment participation rate was 89.6%. In San Luis Obispo County, where the Latino population is 22.9%, participation was 88.2%.
The Lab cited the lack of computer access and expertise as a key factor.
“Past research has found that Black and Hispanic adults in America are substantially less likely to own a desktop or laptop computer, and receiving benefits requires claimants to complete a certification process online every other week,” said von Wachter.
The study also found that counties with higher shares of residents with broadband access tend to see higher participation rates.
The low rate of Hispanics receiving unemployment is likely driven by multiple factors, not just citizenship status, the California Policy Lab found.
A Pew Research Center study in 2019 also illustrated the problem.
It found 82% of whites reported owning a desktop or laptop computer, compared to 57% of Hispanics.
“There are also substantial racial and ethnic differences in broadband adoption, with whites being more likely than either blacks or Hispanics to report having a broadband connection at home,” it said.
It’s why some lawmakers of the California Latino Legislative Caucus have introduced legislation to provide affordable and reliable broadband internet access to all Californians, according to Sanchez.
Disproportionate job loss
Statewide, Latinos have faced disproportionate job losses due to the pandemic’s economic downturn.
Latinos, who represent 38% of the state’s workforce, saw a 50% job decline since February 2020, the month before the COVID pandemic sent the economy reeling. Whites, who represent a similar portion of the workforce, saw their jobs decline by 25%, a Legislative Analyst’s Office report showed.
Additionally, Latinos workers make up a disproportionate portion of the state’s frontline workforce, according to a separate Legislative Analyst’s Office report.
After Negrete agreed to help her family, she said she experienced site outages to access the state’s Unemployment Development Department’s online portal and delays contacting the department’s call center.
“We just had to keep trying to go through the system and eventually ... we got through,” Negrete said.
Negrete wonders whether her parents-in-law, who speak limited English, would have been able to access unemployment benefits without help.
“If we don’t have adequate call centers because we know that’s going to be the line of communication and choice for our families, it’s going to be very difficult to get them to receive and obtain this benefit,” Sanchez said.
Turning to young or adult children for help with navigating computer access or English-to-Spanish translation to access benefits is a common practice in immigrant communities, he said, especially during the pandemic.
Many Latino and immigrant workers in the state are not familiar with the process of filing for unemployment benefits, according to Sanchez, because they have never needed to obtain unemployment benefits.
“Our community is very hardworking. There’s never been a time that they needed it. This was the first time that many of our families have needed assistance,” he said. “They’ve always found a way to ensure that they’re able to make some type of income for their family.”
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