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Watchdog Marks Hispanic Heritage Month with Call for Admin to “Do Much More” to Support Latinos and Latinas

WASHINGTON, D.C. – Today, on the first day of Hispanic Heritage Month, government watchdog Accountable.US released a new report detailing the Trump administration’s failure to protect the Latino community, and the hardships Latino and Latina individuals continue to face as a result of the government’s botched COVID-19 response. Among other failures, the administration failed to get small business aid into the hands of Latino/a business owners — and the community has faced high rates of job loss and heightened safety risks as a result.

“From the beginning, this administration has implemented policies hostile to Latino, Latina, and Hispanic people, so it is no surprise — though still deeply distressing — that the President Trump has failed to protect these communities during the pandemic,” said Accountable.US Spokesperson Jenna Kruse. “With Latino unemployment up and a clear lack of federal small business assistance for Latino enterprises, it’s obvious that the Trump administration must do much more to ensure Latino, Latina, and Hispanic people are getting the support they need to weather the ongoing crisis.”

Here is some of the key evidence that the Trump administration has left Latino/a people behind in its mismanaged, incompetent pandemic response strategy:

  • DISPROPORTIONATE HOSPITALIZATIONS & DEATHS: Latino/a people are hospitalized and dying from COVID-19 at four times the rates of white people and likely being undercounted.
  • LATINO COMMUNITY HARDEST HIT BY COVID-19 JOB LOSSES: Latino/a unemployment rose to 18.9 percent in April and 14.5 percent in June — exceeding the peak unemployment rate for Hispanics in the Great Recession of 2007-2009. And as a result of limited remote-work access, spikes in unemployment, and wage and health care disparities predating the pandemic, Latino and Latina workers have faced worse economic hardships during the COVID-19 crisis than white workers.
  • LATINO BUSINESS OWNERS LEFT OUT OF SMALL BUSINESS AID: According to NBC News, “A survey of more than 500 Latino small-business owners who applied for coronavirus relief loans found that just 97 of them received money while the rest have never heard back on their applications.”

See the watchdog’s full analysis here.

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