OP-ED: Coronavirus pandemic exposes Los Angeles’ systemic issues

By Alexander Martinez

The COVID-19 crisis has caused extraordinary shock to the City of Los Angeles. Angelenos have been impacted by record job losses, shuttered businesses, and the uncertainty of whether our students and public education system can handle the rigors of learning that is compliant with the social distancing orders issued by City, County, and State officials.

A study released by Los Angeles City Controller Ron Galperin shows that more than 300,000 people lost their jobs in the city of Los Angeles since the coronavirus pandemic hit in March. With 20.3 percent of Angelenos unemployed, the city has a larger unemployment rate than California at 15.5 percent, and the rest of the country at 14.7 percent. According to the controller’s website, “While L.A. gained back 16,000 jobs in May, the City is still down more than 252,000 jobs since the COVID-19 pandemic hit.”

While we know the pandemic has impacted Angelenos of all backgrounds, it would be remiss not to underline that Black and Brown Angelenos have disproportionately suffered the negative socioeconomic effects of the virus. The pandemic has intensified the devastation felt by low-income neighborhoods and communities of color. It is painfully obvious just how much economic injustices truly exist in Los Angeles.

The data released by the controller shows that a large percentage of those jobs losses have occurred in sectors where many minorities earn a living. Those sectors include the food and service industry (down 70,000 jobs), retail work (down 33,000 jobs), and the healthcare field (down 27,000 jobs). Sadly, neighborhoods in South Los Angeles, Harvard Heights, and the Pico-Union area all top the list of areas with the highest unemployment rate. Again, areas where there are large demographics of people of color that are low-income renters and single-parent households compared to other parts of the City.  The controller noted that “Since March 2020, unemployment has reached historic heights, with more than 4.7 million Californians filing claims, including 401,000 Angelenos — a more than 300 percent increase over February of this year.”

Compounding this issue is the fact that Los Angeles never fully recovered from the great recession or middle-class jobs losses that occurred over the last three decades due to the city’s shrinking aerospace and manufacturing sectors. Many of the jobs lost were those held by working-class people of color. Good strong policies—such as Mayor Eric Garcetti’s unfulfilled campaign promise to eliminate the city’s business tax— would spur job growth, but Mayor Garcetti has halfheartedly abandoned this platform. Starting in January 2016, Mayor Garcetti’s plan was for the tax rate to reduce over a three-year period, however, the tax rate will still be higher than taxes in Beverly Hills, Culver City, West Hollywood, Glendale and Calabasas, even after the reduction. Because of this plan, the people are unduly suffering as a result.

The fact that a serious proposal has not been put forward by the City to stem the tide of coronavirus-related jobs losses is astounding and reveals that Mayor Garcetti never really had a plan to help reverse the economic fortunes of so many depressed regions in Los Angeles. In fact, according to the Los Angeles Times, Mayor Garcetti is planning to impose furloughs on nearly 16,000 civilian city workers, saving $139 million, in order to close the budget gap for 2020-21. The leadership we are seeing out of city hall appears to be one prone to popular opinion, not what is in the best interests of Angelenos.

For instance, before the current national social justice movements against police brutality, Mayor Garcetti had proposed a seven percent increase in the Los Angeles Police Department budget. While there is a need to rightly focus on improved police-community relations and the need for accountability, Mayor Garcetti quickly joined the current movement to defund law enforcement and has proposed investing in minority neighborhoods.

Where was this plan before?

Now, amidst all the economic uncertainty, and a botched rollout of coronavirus testing sites, Mayor Garcetti has once again announced that Los Angeles may once again be subject to stricter shelter-in-place guidelines for the foreseeable future. However, without a serious plan in place to kick start our economy, Angelenos should be very wary of any promises made, and should hold Mayor Eric Garcetti accountable for his unfilled promises.

Alexander Martinez is a political commentator from Norwalk.