Table 1.

Demographic characteristics of essential and frontline workers: March 2020

This table lists demographic characteristics of essential and frontline workers. Essential workers are identified by mapping official industry guidelines issued by the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) on March 28, 2020 to microdata from the 2018 and 2019 American Community Survey. Frontline workers are approximated by their feasibility of work from home in the worker’s occupation group (Dingel and Neiman 2020). Shutdown adjusts for industries that were shutdown or running under limited demand early in the COVID crisis (Vavra 2020). Group averages are shown in Panel A. Panel B reports demographic characteristics at the major (2-digit) occupation group level for frontline workers, while Panel C additionally excludes shutdown industries. Demographic characteristics consist of the share of females, racial background (White, Black, Hispanic, Asian, Other Race), immigrant status (foreign born), single mother, and highest educational attainment (less than High-School (HS), HS degree, some college, higher than Bachelor Degree (BA)). Military is excluded as an occupation group, so share does not sum to 100