Letter (PDF)

WASHINGTON – Congresswoman Ayanna Pressley (D-MA), a member of the House Committee on Oversight and Reform, and Senator Elizabeth Warren (D-MA), a member of the Senate Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions (HELP) Committee, sent a letter to Gene L. Dodaro, U.S. Comptroller General, requesting a Government Accountability Office (GAO) report on how COVID-19 relief funds have been distributed to disproportionately affected communities. The request seeks to examine how much federal COVID-19 relief funding went to businesses and providers located in low-income and medically underserved communities, as well as Tribal businesses and health care providers, community health centers, and other organizations serving high-need populations. 

“The health and economic effects of the pandemic have been especially severe in communities of color and Native communities, yet it is not clear whether federal relief resources have reached these communities in proportion to their need. We, therefore, request an evaluation of supplemental appropriations provided under COVID-19 relief laws, including the Coronavirus Aid, Relief, and Economic Security Act, with regard to how funds have been distributed to disproportionately affected communities,” wrote the lawmakers. 

The coronavirus pandemic has had a disproportionate impact on communities of color and Native communities. Black, Hispanic/Latino, and American Indian/Alaska Native people are being hospitalized with COVID-19 at higher rates and are dying from COVID-19 at younger ages. People living on tribal reservations are more than four times as likely to have been diagnosed with COVID-19 as the U.S. population as a whole. The same communities have also been hit hardest by the economic fallout: every month since the economic crisis began in March 2020, Black and Latino workers have had significantly higher unemployment rates than white workers, even after adjusting for age and education status.

To date, the federal government has spent trillions of dollars to sustain our health system and mitigate the economic fallout during this public health emergency. However, it is not clear whether that relief has successfully reached the communities that are most in need. A survey of Black and Latino business owners found that only 12% of those who applied for a loan from the Paycheck Protection Program were approved for the full amount, and half expected their businesses to permanently close within six months.

In health care, a study of the Provider Relief Fund found that hospitals with the most revenue from private insurance received more than twice as much funding per hospital bed as the hospitals with the least private insurance revenue – raising the question of whether funds truly reached health care providers serving communities that are most in need. COVID-19 testing may also be harder to obtain for people of color: one analysis found that testing sites located in predominantly Black and Hispanic neighborhoods of major cities face higher demand than those in predominantly white areas of those same cities, leading to longer wait times. Independent analyses have found that ZIP codes with large white populations have had more testing sites throughout the pandemic than ZIP codes with more people of color, and 35 percent of rural Black Americans live in a “highly vulnerable testing desert.”

Since the beginning of the pandemic, Congresswoman Pressley and Senator Warren have been pushing for health equity in the federal pandemic response and for transparent information on racial equity. 

• In August, Congresswoman Pressley and Senator Warren introduced bicameral legislation, the Corrections Data Transparency Act, to require the Federal Bureau of Prisons, the United States Marshals Service, and state governments to collect and publicly report detailed data about COVID-19 in federal, state, and local correctional facilities.
• Congresswoman Pressley and Senator Warren introduced the bicameral Equitable Data Collection and Disclosure on COVID-19 Act to require the federal government to collect and report coronavirus demographic data on race and ethnicity.
• In March, the lawmakers wrote to Health & Human Services Secretary Azar urging the agency to collect racial and ethnic demographic data on COVID-19 testing and treatment. 

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