A majority of Americans who have had a positive coronavirus diagnosis in their household say they are struggling financially, according to a new poll.
An NPR, Robert Wood Johnson Foundation, and Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health poll released Monday found that a majority of U.S. households faced lost jobs or pay cuts during the pandemic if someone in the household contracted the virus.
Poll results shows:
- 64% of households with a coronavirus diagnosis say household members lost jobs or wages.
- 63% of households with a coronavirus diagnosis say they are facing serious financial problems.
- 49% of households with a coronavirus diagnosis say they are having serious problems paying credit card bills, loans, and debts.
- 49% of households with a coronavirus diagnosis say they have used up all or most of their savings.
- 22% households with a coronavirus diagnosis say they are having serious problems affording medical care.
The poll also showed households with annual incomes below $100,000 are more apt to face financial hardship, with 54% reporting financial difficulty, compared with 20% facing financial trouble in households with incomes over $100,000 annually.
In households that have an individual with a disability, 63% say they are facing serious financial hardship, according to the poll results. Of those households, 37% say they have used up all or most of their savings.
Melinda Buntin, who chairs the Department of Health Policy at Vanderbilt University, told NPR the poll shows "the groups of people who are very disproportionately affected by this pandemic."
Harvard University researcher Mary Gorski Findling, who helped analyze the results, told NPR that it is "scary" that "more than half of these households having nothing to fall back on."
The poll surveyed around 3,500 Americans between July 1- Aug. 3. The poll's margin of error is ± 3.3 percentage points.
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