COVID-19, Black jurisdictions, and budget constraints: how fiscal footing shapes fighting the virus

Abstract

ABSTRACT In the United States (U.S.), most reports regarding racial disparities in incidence and death from COVID-19 understate the importance of majority-Black local jurisdictions’ fiscal capacity in shaping African Americans’ resilience during the pandemic and majority-Black locales’ economic trajectories afterward. Black households and jurisdictions manage legacy and ongoing racialized capitalism. My data are fieldwork findings from a 2017 and 2018 study of the U.S. county with the highest concentration of middle-class African Americans, Prince George’s County (PGC), Maryland, a suburb of Washington, D.C., alongside government reports on how D.C.-area counties experience COVID-19 fallout. I find PGC’s fragile fiscal state prior to the coronavirus means it weathers harsher consequences from COVID-19 than two neighbouring counties with significantly smaller Black populations. My analysis explicates how layers of racial disadvantage compound across time, region, and level of social organization.