What the Pandemic Showed Us About Global Inequality: QuickTake

The gap between rich and poor had become a defining narrative of the 21st century long before the coronavirus pandemic put racial disparities and the struggles of low-paid workers in stark relief. Then the killing of George Floyd, a Black American, by a White Minneapolis police officer in May sparked renewed focus on the global debate about the causes of the world’s searing inequalities, why they’ve been tolerated for so long and what can be done to reduce them.

Densely populated poor and minority areas emerged as coronavirus hot spots and suffered disproportionate deaths in hard-hit countries including the U.S., the U.K. and Brazil. While the well-off hibernated in home offices and vacation properties, the essential workers who stock grocery store shelves and staff nursing homes continued to risk their lives on the front lines. Low-wage workers were hit disproportionately hard by job cuts. In the U.S., where unemployment reached the highest since the Great Depression era, pictures of snaking lines at food banks went viral. This all served as a backdrop to Floyd’s death, which touched off the biggest civil rights movement in the U.S. since the 1960s and protests around the world.