Soon, President Biden is expected to sign a third COVID recession relief plan just days before emergency unemployment benefits expire. For many the need is great, in part, because this recession is the most unequal in modern history. This past Friday, new jobs numbers confirmed that middle and high-income workers are returning but the jobs of low-income Americans have been annihilated. Relief checks have been a lifeline, but temporary. Many, like the Americans you re about to meet, were already struggling in poverty when COVID pushed them over the edge. As they fall, the pandemic is cutting away at the safety net. For 23-year-old Courtney Yoder, the cruel recession hit just as she was saving enough from her job to move out of a tent, anticipating the birth of her first child.
CBS News
With pandemic challenges, students say they fell behind
Young teenagers and kids from low-income households told 60 Minutes they struggled with virtual learning, and some saw their grades drop. 2021 Mar 07
When Nathan Majeed, 17, and his classmates at Cristo Rey Columbus High School in Ohio were given a notice to stay home for three weeks at the beginning of the pandemic, there was a celebratory mood in the air. They kind of saw it as a spring break, Majeed said. They were excited until we started to realize kind of what was going on.
After those three weeks, Majeed said, all his classes would come to be held virtually. His teachers set up what he called a makeshift online school that was definitely unstructured. Majeed said students weren t prepared for it. Going to school online is something completely new to us. It s not what we signed up for, he explained. We definitely prefer in-person activities [and] in-person lear