Opinion: NY can truly thank essential workers by giving them vaccines immediately
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Deepti Sharma is a candidate in City Council District 24. Photo courtesy of Sharma
By Deepti Sharma
The COVID-19 vaccine is FDA approved. Even as we are in the midst of a second wave of the virus, New Yorkers are finally seeing a light at the end of what has been a very long, bleak tunnel. Still, many of our city’s 1 million essential workers who work outside healthcare settings won’t be eligible for the initial doses. That’s especially troubling when you consider the demographics: roughly two thirds are women, half are immigrants and a third are Black and Hispanic. If the mayor truly cares about confronting income inequality, he must pay attention to these numbers.
We talk a lot about thanking frontline workers, but it’s all just pot banging unless we act.
Last spring, while many of us hunkered down at home, frontline workers went out every day to the hospitals, grocery stores and commercial kitchens that kept New York City running. We thanked these workers with nightly applause and homemade signs stuck in apartment windows. But we had little idea of the physical risks and emotional strain they were experiencing.
A quarter of our city’s essential workers — from nursing assistants to grocery store clerks to bus drivers — are low income, their households earning less than 200 percent of the poverty level. And yet neither our city nor the federal government offered them nearly enough support.
We already know that women and minorities earn far less, no matter the industry. So raising the minimum wage — including the tipped minimum wage — should be top of the city’s priority list.
Restaurant workers still make sub-minimum wage, which is why I’ve been working with One Fair Wage to convince Gov. Cuomo to change that. Further, too many people are excluded from city laws regarding sick days, paid family leave and access to affordable healthcare.
They need long-term social and economic support that will help them maximize their income, including comprehensive rent and transportation subsidies for families that are struggling. While free pandemic childcare for restaurant, food and delivery workers has been a lifesaver for many families, it’s something they’ve always needed and struggled to afford, even with open schools.
The city must find a way to continue child care assistance after schools fully reopen.
As a first-generation American, a woman of color and a small business owner, I know these communities well. I saw the financial obstacles so many minority restaurateurs were facing and, in 2011 launched, FoodtoEat, a network of 100 immigrant, minority and female-owned businesses across the five boroughs.
Before the coronavirus pandemic, we served the corporate lunch crowd, catering meals for over 1,000 companies, including Warby Parker and The Skimm. Quarantine decimated our business, but I knew that neither the banks nor wealthy investors would come to our rescue.
Instead, I sought donations and partnerships with organizations like World Central Kitchen and we began cooking for hospitals, healthcare facilities and nonprofits. In this way, we’ve managed to keep some of our partner restaurants afloat, like the mother-daughter owners of a Mexican restaurant and the Botswanan owner of an African restaurant, both in Queens, and the Greek chef serving up food from her native country in Brooklyn.
None of this makes up for the more than 1,000 New York City restaurants that have closed since March. Nearly 60 percent of the workforce is unemployed. And even with our efforts, only 30 of the 100 restaurants in our network have been able to reopen. That means 70 percent of our vendors are down at least one source of income. Some of the immigrants among them don’t qualify for federal assistance, which puts their families in dire straits.
Nationally, 69 percent of the immigrant workforce is considered essential, as is 74 percent of the undocumented population, compared to just 65 percent of U.S.-born workers. But national relief has fallen short. The CARES Act specifically barred immigrant families with undocumented family members from receiving stimulus payments. That meant 6.2 million essential workers—parents to 3.8 million U.S.-born children—were disqualified. In April, Mayor de Blasio announced an emergency fund to help these families. But information about who qualifies and how to apply remains unclear. On top of that, services like public transportation, were slashed, making it harder and more dangerous for essential workers who rely on the MTA to get to work.
To the Mayor’s credit, he established the “Pre-K for All” program and raised the minimum wage to $15. But at the same time, nearly 1.2 million New Yorkers, including one in five children, were experiencing food insecurity before the pandemic hit. Now it’s closer to 2 million. Homelessness is also at a record high. Here in Queens, tenants are being evicted for the first time since March and food insecurity is up; every time I pass the Pomonok Community Center, lines for the food pantry there are ridiculously long.
If we’re serious about changing stories like this one, we must put women, minority and immigrant essential workers first: first for economic relief, first for social support and first for the vaccine. That’s what a real thank you looks like.
Deepti Sharma is the founder and CEO of FoodtoEat. She is running for city council in Queens District 24.
