Along with reaffirming the critical finding that every Rhode Island Standard of Need (RISN) has established since its first publication in 2001 — namely, that the Federal Poverty Level grossly underestimates the amount of income that a person and/or a family need to meet basic living costs such as housing, food, healthcare, and childcare — this RISN, published while the COVID-19 pandemic was still raging, drew two more crucial conclusions.
One, COVID-19 created challenges for Rhode Island’s essential workers, among whom Latinx and Black workers are overrepresented. The coronavirus pandemic highlighted the importance of workers who provide critical services and do not have the luxury of working from home. Home health aides, CNAs, childcare workers, cashiers, sanitation workers, and other "essential workers" are often not paid wages sufficient to meet their families’ basic needs. Because of restrictive eligibility rules for SNAP and the Child Care Assistance Program, many may not qualify for this assistance. As is the case with low-wage workers in general, Black and Latinx Rhode Islanders account for a disproportionate segment of the workers society deems essential.
Two, CARES Act support helped ease financial stress for many workers and their households during the coronavirus pandemic and highlighted the need for increased pay, higher unemployment benefits, and additional SNAP assistance to help working families make ends meet all through the year. Whereas in ordinary times a parent who lost a job with income not far above the poverty level would find themselves with unemployment income and other benefits leaving them below the poverty level, the expanded federal unemployment benefits and increased SNAP benefits kept such people and their families above the poverty level for a number of months during the pandemic.