•Press Release COVID-19 United States Workers
Washington DC — The US Postal Service has historically been an important source of middle-class jobs for Black workers. As the Postal Service is threatened by insolvency, a new analysis by the Center for Economic and Policy Research (CEPR) shows the impact that cutbacks will have on these Black workers.
From 2017 to 2019, 26.8 percent of Postal Service workers were Black, compared to 11.5 percent of the private sector workforce during this time period. This means that Postal Service workers are more than twice as likely to be Black as workers in the private sector.
“Forcing large-scale cuts on the Postal Service is a hammer blow to the Black middle-class,” explains CEPR’s Hayley Brown, coauthor of the analysis. “Those whose positions are not eliminated outright may find their job quality diminished as cuts to employee benefits are also being considered.”
The pandemic caused a huge loss of revenue to the Postal Service at the same time it incurred extra expenses to keep frontline workers safe. In addition to the rescue loan from the CARES Act, the Postal Service requested an additional $75 billion. Without intervention, it is in danger of running out of cash after September, further endangering vote-by-mail elections in November.
