How the pandemic and federal exclusion harmed and NY state’s Excluded Workers Fund helped immigrant families’ health and wellbeing

Principal Investigator

Robert Courtney Smith, Professor of Sociology, City University of New York

Co-Investigators

 

  • Andres Besserer Rayas, Ph.D. Candidate, Department of Political Science, City University of New York
  • Frank Heiland, Associate Professor, Department of Economics, City University of New York
  • Krista M. Perreira, Professor, Department of Social Medicine, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill

Funded By

Social, Behavioral, and Economic COVID Coordinating Center (SBE CCC)

The Problem

In 2021, New York state launched their $2.1 billion Excluded Workers Fund (EWF), designed to provide aid to workers who lost their jobs during the COVID-19 pandemic but were not eligible to receive federal aid—primarily undocumented immigrants. The EWF was the largest of six programs across the U.S. created for undocumented immigrants who were excluded from federal pandemic relief programs. It was designed to replace a full year of unemployment insurance, with 99 percent of recipients receiving the maximum payment of $15,600. However, the funds ran out in just two months, and its closure created two groups: migrant workers who received funds, and migrant workers who did not.

The goals of this study are to:

  1. examine how exclusion from government programs and aid may have impacted health;
  2. analyze how the pandemic affected housing, food insecurity, and the reported health of immigrant workers;
  3. assess how much the EWF affected housing, food insecurity, and the reported health of immigrant workers; and
  4. describe mechanisms, processes, and pathways through which the pandemic harmed—and the EWF helped—participants of the program.

The Approach

The team analyzed data from a July 2020 survey of 5,258 undocumented immigrants, fielded by a community-based organization for undocumented immigrants in New York. The survey asked about pandemic effects on income, health, housing, and food security. The team worked with the organization to re-survey members in 2021 and 2022. The team also plans to survey a subset of 500 respondents to analyze if these effects differed before the pandemic, before receiving EWF funding, and after receiving EWF funding.

Using preliminary ethnographic and interview data, the research team analyzed how EWF helped respondents differently. They identified several factors—like contending with chronic health conditions, experiencing long COVID, or having insulating factors like children who were U.S. citizens—that affected outcomes among those who did and did not receive EWF funds.

The Findings

Based on the initial interviews, the research team observed that those who experienced long or severe COVID-19 infections before EWF payments became available often used the funds for their own health and recovery. In doing so, they had fewer funds to increase their and their family’s security compared to those who were healthier prior to receiving funds. However, individuals without long or severe COVID infections were able to help their own and their family’s financial security more than those experiencing worse health outcomes who did or did not receive EWF payments.

Additionally, the team posits that immigrant networks, which are cited as protective factors for health outcomes, were weakened during the pandemic, but that the EWF was able to re-strengthen them for those who received the payments, compared to those who did not.

Case studies demonstrate that insulating factors like savings, living with someone eligible for EWF, and receiving money from other people in their life helped workers navigate the pandemic and its effects, including long COVID.