{"database": "press", "table": "releases", "rows": [["http://www.warren.senate.gov/newsroom/press-releases/at-warren-pressley-request-independent-watchdog-agrees-to-investigate-racial-inequity-in-pandemic-response", "At Warren, Pressley Request, Independent Watchdog Agrees to Investigate Racial Inequity in Pandemic Response", "2020-12-10", "2020", "2020-12", "Democrat", "Senate", "MA", "Elizabeth Warren", "W000817", "www.warren.senate.gov", null, null, "legacy", "December 10, 2020\n\t\t\t At Warren, Pressley Request, Independent Watchdog Agrees to Investigate Racial Inequity in Pandemic Response \n\t\t\t\n\t\t\tResponse from the\r\nGovernment Accountability Office (GAO) here Lawmakers\r\nInitial Request here Washington, DC - United States Senator Elizabeth Warren\r\n(D-Mass.), a member of the Senate Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions (HELP)\r\nCommittee, and Congresswoman Ayanna Pressley (D-Mass.), a member of the House\r\nCommittee on Oversight and Reform, released the following statement regarding\r\nGAO approving\r\ntheir request to investigate how COVID-19 relief funds have been distributed to\r\ndisproportionately affected communities. \"Decades of structural racism have hindered the ability of communities\r\nof color to get ahead, and right now, Black and Brown people are some of the\r\nhardest hit by these economic and public health crises. The GAO's agreement to\r\ninvestigate inequities in the distribution of COVID-19 relief funds is a\r\ncritical step to help ensure that communities that are most affected by this\r\npandemic have the resources they need to address these crises head-on,\" said\r\nthe lawmakers. The coronavirus pandemic has had a disproportionate impact on communities of\r\ncolor and Indigenous communities. Black, Hispanic/Latino, and American\r\nIndian/Alaska Native people are being hospitalized with and dying from COVID-19\r\nat higher\r\nrates and are dying from COVID-19 at younger ages.\r\nPeople living on tribal lands are more\r\nthan four times as likely to have been diagnosed with COVID-19 as the U.S.\r\npopulation as a whole. The same communities have also been hit hardest by the\r\neconomic fallout: every month since the economic crisis began in March 2020,\r\nBlack and Latino workers have had significantly\r\nhigher unemployment rates than white workers, even after adjusting for age\r\nand education status. To date, the federal government has spent trillions of dollars to sustain\r\nthe health system and mitigate the economic fallout during this public health\r\nemergency. However, it is not clear whether that relief has successfully\r\nreached the communities that are most in need. A survey of Black and Latino\r\nbusiness owners found\r\nthat only 12% of those who applied for a loan from the Paycheck Protection\r\nProgram and other federal relief programs were approved for the full amount,\r\nand half expected their businesses to permanently close within six months. In health care, a study of the Provider Relief Fund found that hospitals\r\nwith the most revenue from private insurance received more\r\nthan twice as much funding per hospital bed as the hospitals with the least\r\nprivate insurance revenue - raising the question of whether funds truly reached\r\nhealth care providers serving communities that are most in need. COVID-19\r\ntesting may also be harder to obtain for people of color: one\r\nanalysis found that testing sites located in predominantly Black and\r\nHispanic neighborhoods of major cities face higher demand than those in\r\npredominantly white areas of those same cities, leading to longer wait times.\r\nIndependent analyses\r\nhave found that ZIP codes with large white populations have had more\r\ntesting sites throughout the pandemic than ZIP codes with more people of color,\r\nand 35 percent of rural Black Americans live in a \"highly vulnerable\r\ntesting desert.\" Since the beginning of the pandemic, Senator Warren has been pushing for\r\nhealth equity in the federal pandemic response and for transparent information\r\non racial equity. \r\n In August, Senator Warren and Congresswoman Pressley\r\n     introduced bicameral legislation, the\r\n     Corrections Data Transparency Act, to require the Federal Bureau of\r\n     Prisons, the United States Marshals Service, and state governments to\r\n     collect and publicly report detailed data about COVID-19 in federal,\r\n     state, and local correctional facilities.\r\n Senator Warren and Congresswoman Pressley introduced\r\n     the bicameral Equitable Data Collection and Disclosure on COVID-19 Act to\r\n     require the federal government to collect and report coronavirus\r\n     demographic data on race and ethnicity.\r\n In March, the lawmakers wrote\r\n     to Health & Human Services Secretary Azar urging the agency to collect\r\n     racial and ethnic demographic data on COVID-19 testing and treatment.\r\n ###\n\t\t\t\n\t\t\t\n\t\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\n\t  \n\n\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\n\t \n\t\t\n\t\t\tPrint\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\t\n\t\t\tEmail\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\t\n\t\t\t\t\n\t\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\t\n\t\t\t\tTweet\n\t\t\t\n\t\t\n\t \n\t\n\t\n\n\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\n    \n\t\n\t\n    \n    \n    \n    \t\n    \t\n\t    \t  \n\t\t    \n\t\t    \n\t\t    \tPrevious Article", 1, "2026-03-30T12:14:52Z", "2026-03-30T12:14:52Z"]], "columns": ["url", "title", "date", "year", "month", "party", "chamber", "state", "member_name", "bioguide_id", "domain", "scraper", "source", "date_source", "text", "has_text", "collected_at", "updated_at"], "primary_keys": ["url"], "primary_key_values": ["http://www.warren.senate.gov/newsroom/press-releases/at-warren-pressley-request-independent-watchdog-agrees-to-investigate-racial-inequity-in-pandemic-response"], "units": {}, "query_ms": 2.2313299123197794, "source": "dwillis/congress-press", "source_url": "https://github.com/dwillis/congress-press", "license": "MIT", "license_url": "https://github.com/dwillis/congress-press/blob/main/LICENSE"}