BBC’s Newsday interviewed Dr. Desi Rodriguez-Lonebear, UCLA Associate Professor of Sociology and American Indian Studies and a Northern Cheyenne tribal citizen. She discusses how COVID-19 has hit Native American reservations like hers. “Every day there are funerals. We’ve lost so many people that if you actually look at the proportion of people we have lost to Covid in our community it would equal about 1.3 million Americans.” To listen to the full interview, click HERE.
The UCLA California Policy Lab (CPL) recently released a new Data Point focused on the “Lost Wages Assistance” program that started on September 7th in California. After Congress couldn’t come to an agreement about a second stimulus plan, the President put forth this program. CPL’s research team found that about 192,000 California workers will not qualify to receive the $300 benefit, because they do not already receive at least $100 in unemployment insurance benefits. The vast majority (82.5%) of people who will be ineligible to receive the $300 benefit are adults over the age of 20. Over 60% of ineligible claimants are female and over 57% have a high school degree or less.
UCLA Director of the California Policy Lab, Dr. Till von Wachter, told The Sacramento Bee, “While the program will be a temporary boost for unemployed Californians, it’s a 50% reduction from the $600 that unemployed Californians were previously receiving.”
To read the “Data Point,” click HERE.
To read CPL’s latest policy briefs on this issue, click HERE.
By Sophia L. Ángeles, Graduate Student Researcher; Janna Shadduck-Hernández, Project Director, UCLA Labor Center; and Saba Waheed, Research Director, UCLA Labor Center
This past June, the UCLA Labor Center, in collaboration with the Los Angeles Community College District Dolores Huerta Labor Institute and California State University, Long Beach, published two studies examining workers and learners—college students who also work—and their unique educational and work experiences. We employed a methodology that was student-driven, engaging more than 450 undergraduate students to collect 869 surveys and conduct 75 interviews with UCLA, California Community College, and California State University workers and learners across Los Angeles County. Our hope is that these findings will provide information for colleges, employers, and policymakers to improve conditions for workers and learners.
Two-thirds of workers and learners work every single term of their undergraduate careers—the new normal for many students pursuing higher education. A majority work in low-wage jobs in the service industry. Forced to work as many hours as possible to make ends meet, two-thirds miss at least one educational opportunity because of work duties. Juggling work and school leads many to forgo internship and work-study opportunities in their fields of study that could improve opportunities in their future careers. Their situation is so stressful and overwhelming that 40% of workers and learners have considered withdrawing from school.
Graphic: Eunice Ho
Iris López, a recent UCLA Labor Studies graduate, explains the predicaments workers and learners face in their struggle to attend school and keep up with living expenses:
“My biggest concern has always been my ability to finance my education. My mother is a single parent who works in the fields. I feel guilty asking for help because I know she is struggling herself. Education should not cost us our ability to eat or cause concern over how we’re going to pay the next few units.”
Graphic: Eunice Ho
The COVID-19 pandemic has exacerbated conditions for workers and learners, as half were laid off, terminated, or furloughed in April and May. As schools moved to minimize the spread of COVID-19, one quarter of workers and learners were forced to make housing changes, such as moving back in with family or vacating student housing. The housing situation has further impacted learners who must attend classes remotely while managing home responsibilities, like caring for younger siblings or family members who have fallen ill.
Graphic: Eunice Ho
What can be done?
Current trends point to increasing tuition and living expenses for college students, making it likely that more will have to work to offset those financial burdens.
Addressing the needs of workers and learners requires investing in California’s education system to achieve the following:
Report: Unseen Costs: The Experiences of Workers and Learners in Los Angeles County (click to download)
Brief: A Survey of Los Angeles Workers and Learners During COVID-19 (click to download)
Sophia L. Ángeles is a graduate student researcher with the UCLA Labor Center’s Worker and Learner project and a UCLA PhD candidate. Her research focuses on the intersection of immigration and language to examine newcomer youths’ educational experiences and their K–16 trajectories.
Janna Shadduck-Hernández, Ed.D., is a project director at the UCLA Labor Center and teaches for UCLA Labor Studies and the Graduate School of Education and Information Studies. Her research and teaching focus on developing culturally relevant, participatory educational models with first- and second-generation university students, community members, and youth, with a focus on the organizing efforts of low-wage workers to combat labor and workplace violations.
Saba Waheed is research director at the UCLA Labor Center. She has over fifteen years of research experience developing projects with strong community participation. With her team at the Labor Center, she coordinated the first ever study of domestic work employers, launched a study of young people in the service economy, and conducted research on the taxi, garment, nail salon, construction, and restaurant industries.
grandriver/Getty Images
“Indigenous Peoples across the country continue to be disproportionately impacted by the coronavirus. As of May 18, 2020, the Navajo Nation has the highest Covid-19 case rates surpassing New York, the pandemic’s epicenter in the United States. As the virus spreads, Indigenous Peoples and nations in the United States face stark disparities in accessing resources to protect their communities—not the least of which relate to data.”
In this recent Items article, Dr. Randall Akee, UCLA Associate Professor of Public Policy and American Indian Studies, and Dr. Desi Rodriguez-Lonebear, UCLA Assistant Professor in Sociology and American Indian Studies, along with Dr. Stephanie Russo Carroll, Annita Lucchesi, and Dr. Jennifer Rai Richards come to the conclusion that Indigenous communities need more data that advance Indigenous rights and interests, and they need action to hold the federal government accountable to its treaty obligations and advance systemic change that dismantles racism.
To read the complete article titled, “Indigenous Data in the Covid-19 Pandemic: Straddling Erasure, Terrorism, and Sovereignty,” click HERE.
In a recent KCRW Greater L.A. podcast titled, “LA Freeways: The infrastructure of racism,” UCLA Professor Eric Avila spoke about how White Supremacy motivated some city transportation plans. For example, “Boyle Heights…was redlined by banks and home insurance providers because its mix of races was considered unsafe. ‘It was described by the federal government as hopelessly heterogeneous. A Homeowners Loan Corporation report called it an ideal location for a slum clearance project. That slum clearance project was highway construction,’ says Avila.”
To listen and read the entire podcast, click HERE.
For the newly launched magazine, NOEMA, Dr. Safiya Noble wrote an essay that calls out the titans of technology, and challenges us all to look at the societal needs of this pivotal moment. As calls for abolition and racial justice echo from coast to coast, Dr. Noble informs us how “Big Tech is implicated in displacing high-quality knowledge institutions–newsrooms, libraries, schools, and universities–by destabilizing funding through tax evasion, actively eroding the public goods we need to flourish.” She also writes:
“We need new paradigms, not more new tech. We need fair and equitable implementations of public policy that bolster our collective good. We need to center the most vulnerable among us–the working poor and the disabled, those who live under racial and religious tyranny, the discriminated against and the oppressed. We need to house people and provide health, employment, creative arts, and educational resources. We need to close the intersectional racial wealth gap.”
Dr. Noble is an Associate Professor in UCLA’s Graduate School of Education and Information Studies, co-director of the UCLA Center for Critical Internet Inquiry, and a faculty advisor to the UCLA Bedari Kindness Institute.
To read the complete essay, “The Loss Of Public Goods To Big Tech,” click HERE.
The UCLA California Policy Lab has released their fourth policy brief focused on Unemployment Insurance (UI) claims in California since the start of the COVID-19 pandemic in mid-March. The latest policy brief, “An Analysis of Unemployment Insurance Claims in California During the COVID-19 Pandemic,” focuses on the increasing number of workers who are returning to work and seeing their unemployment claims either reduced or denied altogether as a result. Although returning to work may signal good news for the economy, the brief highlights how this can create some challenging decisions for workers, especially if they’re being called back on a reduced schedule with reduced earnings that result in them losing all or part of their UI benefits in addition to childcare and health safety issues.
To read the press release, click HERE.
To read the full report, click HERE.
1. In a sign of improving economic conditions, the fraction of UI beneficiaries either not receiving their first benefit payment because their earnings were too high or receiving partial UI benefits increased in the first half of May. Only workers earning less than three quarters of their prior weekly wages qualify for partial UI and FPUC (and workers earning above that are denied UI benefits entirely for that week), creating a difficult decision for workers in an uncertain labor market.
2. In the weeks preceding May 16th, the period preceding last week’s Jobs Report, a total of 0.46% of the California labor force in April either received partial UI or were denied benefits because of excess earnings (compared to a one and a half decline in the national unemployment rate). Hence, a substantial fraction of individuals that recently returned to work are working reduced hours and may still be attached to the Unemployment Insurance system.
3. As layoffs become more evenly distributed across industries, the share of UI claims by more educated workers have been gradually increasing. Among higher educated workers that claimed benefits recently, Generation Z (age 16-23), women, and those working in Health Care and Social Assistance were most affected.
4. During the past four weeks, about 70% of initial UI claimants reported that they expected to be recalled. However, differences in recall expectations are growing, with 62% of Black workers who filed claims from May 17th to May 30th saying they expect to be recalled vs. 72% of White, 73% of Hispanic, and 74% of Asian workers.
5. The cumulative impact of the crisis is still substantially greater for less advantaged workers – over 1 in 4 women (as opposed to 1 in 5 men), more than 1 in 3 members of Generation Z, and more than 1 in 2 workers with a high school degree have filed for benefits.
6. As the economy slowly re-opens, programs such as Work Sharing, which allow working claimants to keep a share of their UI benefits and maintain eligibility for the $600 FPUC payment, would help strengthen the financial outlook for workers if they’re working at reduced time and earnings.
To read LA Social Science’s previous coverage of the CPL’s briefs in this series, click HERE.
UCLA’s Luskin Center for History and Policy (LCHP) has continued to be a leading voice in connecting past to present. The center’s “Then & Now” podcast has tackled some of the most challenge topics of the day by connecting them to the past. The latest conversation is with Dr. Robin D.G. Kelley, in which he and Dr. David Myers discuss the current history-making events. LCHP writes:
“Political philosopher Hannah Arendt famously argued – in the case of SS officer Adolf Eichmann – that ordinary people can easily become complicit in evil acts as part of a larger system of injustice and inequality. In this special episode, we discuss the concept of ‘the banality of evil’ with Robin Kelley, prominent scholar and professor of U.S. and African American History. As protests spread across the country over the murders of George Floyd, Breonna Taylor, Ahmaud Arbery, and so many more, Professor Kelley shares with us his perspectives on our shared responsibilities, revolutionary pessimism, and the historian’s role in the pursuit of justice.”
To hear this informative podcast, click HERE.
Today, UCLA Dean of Social Sciences Darnell Hunt appeared on The Lead CNN with Jake Tapper to discuss police brutality and the breaking news of the day dealing with the nationwide protests against racism and injustice. Watch the video of the interview HERE.
In addition, Dean Hunt has recently been asked by numerous media outlets to provide his expert insight on the current events. Check out each of the links below.
https://www.nytimes.com/2020/05/29/opinion/george-floyd-protests-minneapolis.html
https://www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-52869563
https://newsroom.ucla.edu/stories/protests-racial-justice-george-floyd
https://www.bbc.com/indonesia/dunia-52887527
https://www.thewrap.com/hollywood-entertainment-companies-fight-racism-black-lives-matter/
https://www.vox.com/the-goods/2020/6/2/21278113/looting-george-floyd-protests-social-unrest
https://filmdaily.co/news/black-directors-netflix/
https://www.scoop.co.nz/stories/HL2006/S00018/on-the-politics-of-using-the-word-fascist.htm
https://shifter.sapo.pt/2020/06/black-lives-matter-looting-pilhagem/
Photo Credit: REUTERS/Darren Ornitz
Across the country, people are horrified by the recent killings of three African Americans: Breonna Taylor, Ahmaud Arbery and George Floyd. We share that outrage. And these are only a few of the most recent deaths to cause particular anguish amongst those who for too long have endured cruelty after cruelty, indignity after indignity.
What stood out about the killing of George Floyd — more than its senselessness, more than its brutality – was its casualness. What was so chilling was the relaxed demeanor of a police officer — sworn to protect and to serve — his hands calmly in his pockets, kneeling on the neck of a fellow human being, indifferent to his cries of pain and the fear for his life. Equally harrowing was his three fellow officers who stood there and did not recognize the need to intervene in a life or death situation. All these behaviors reflected the utter dehumanization of Black life.
We must never let that indifference to human suffering become our own. We must never deaden our hearts to the pain of others. Our fundamental values demand that we care.
At UCLA, we believe deeply that equity, respect and justice are central to the character of our institution, to the health of our democracy and to the well-being of our world. Still, we recognize that UCLA also can and must do better. As campus leaders, we recommit ourselves to ensuring that our policies and actions value the lives, safety and dignity of every Bruin.
We have begun the process of coordinating virtual reflection spaces for departments and units, where we can come together to try and process what has happened. With assistance from the Office for Equity, Diversity and Inclusion and the university’s Equity Advisors, we are also trying to share ways we can honestly and humbly acknowledge the pain and search for solutions. This includes working with student government leaders to understand and address the needs of our students. Our efforts will be updated on the Resources for Racial Trauma web page as we push forward to deeper understanding and genuine change.
We conclude by stating unequivocally that Black lives DO matter. They matter at UCLA. They matter in Minnesota. They matter everywhere.
In solidarity,
| Gene D. Block Chancellor | Emily A. Carter Executive Vice Chancellor and Provost | Michael Meranze Chair, Academic Senate |
| Michael J. Beck Administrative Vice Chancellor | Gregg Goldman | Monroe Gorden, Jr. Vice Chancellor for Student Affairs |
| Jerry Kang Vice Chancellor for Equity, Diversity and Inclusion | Michael S. Levine Vice Chancellor for Academic Personnel | John Mazziotta Vice Chancellor for Health Sciences CEO, UCLA Health |
| Louise C. Nelson Vice Chancellor for Legal Affairs | Mary Osako Vice Chancellor for Strategic Communications | Rhea Turteltaub Vice Chancellor for External Affairs |
| Roger Wakimoto Vice Chancellor for Research | Yolanda J. Gorman Senior Advisor to the Chancellor and Chief of Staff | Dan Guerrero The Alice and Nahum Lainer Family Director of Athletics |
| Antonio E. Bernardo Dean, Anderson School of Management | Ronald S. Brookmeyer Dean, Fielding School of Public Health | Eric Bullard Dean, Continuing Education and UCLA Extension |
| Miguel A. García-Garibay Dean, Division of Physical Sciences | Robin L. Garrell Vice Provost, Graduate Education Dean, Graduate Division | Darnell M. Hunt Dean, Division of Social Sciences |
| Brian Kite Interim Dean, School of Theater, Film and Television | Paul H. Krebsbach Dean, School of Dentistry | Kelsey Martin Dean, David Geffen School of Medicine |
| Jennifer L. Mnookin Dean, School of Law | Jayathi Y. Murthy Dean, Henry Samueli School of Engineering and Applied Science | Linda Sarna Dean, School of Nursing |
| Gary M. Segura Dean, Luskin School of Public Affairs | David Schaberg Dean, Division of Humanities | Victoria Sork Dean, Division of Life Sciences |
| Brett Steele Dean, School of the Arts and Architecture | Eileen Strempel Dean, The Herb Alpert School of Music | Marcelo Suárez-Orozco Dean, Graduate School of Education & Information Studies |
| Pat Turner Senior Dean, College Dean and Vice Provost, Undergraduate Education | Tony Lee Chief of UCLA Police Department | Naomi Riley President, Undergraduate Students Association |
| Jean Paul Santos President, Graduate Students Association |
Dean Darnell Hunt was interviewed in the following articles/podcasts (click links):
, “George Floyd death: Why Do Some Protests Turn Violent?” BBC News, May 31, 2020
