Biden's Climate Plan Will Not Address Gender and Racial Inequality

Dec 28, 2020 | Greer Gosnell and Sara Hastings-Simon
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Women and minorities have suffered disproportionately from the pandemic recession and must be part of any comprehensive recovery program. The Biden administration’s quest to green the American economy promises to create millions of good jobs “filled by diverse, local and well-trained workers, including women and people of color.” But these jobs will exacerbate long-standing and worsening economic injustices due to their concentration in male-dominated fields. Due to COVID-19, gender disparities in unpaid care work have more than tripled (sextupled for Black and Hispanic women) and women have experienced job losses at a higher rate than men for the first time in history. Non-whites have simultaneously suffered significantly higher pandemic mortality rates and lower resilience in the face of recession due to systemically weaker pre-pandemic economic positions. The interaction of these realities has undermined the economic stability of women of color, in particular.