Who are the Essential and Frontline Workers?
Summary
NBER Working Paper No. 27791, Who are the Essential and Frontline Workers?, by Francine D. Blau, Josefine Koebe and Pamela A. Meyerhofer, published by the National Bureau of Economic Research in September 2020 and revised March 2021. The paper applies Department of Homeland Security essential-industry guidelines from March 2020 to 2018 and 2019 American Community Survey microdata, then uses work-from-home feasibility to identify frontline workers and excludes shutdown industries. It reports that essential workers make up 70% of all workers and mirror the labor force, while frontline workers make up 43% of all workers, earn lower average wages of $22.76, and include higher shares of men, Hispanics and immigrants. It also compares results under the December 2020 guidelines, which add the education sector. Table A1 lists December 2020 frontline workers by occupation group.
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NBER WORKING PAPER SERIES
WHO ARE THE ESSENTIAL AND FRONTLINE WORKERS?
Francine D. Blau
Josefine Koebe
Pamela A. Meyerhofer
Working Paper 27791
http://www.nber.org/papers/w27791
NATIONAL BUREAU OF ECONOMIC RESEARCH
1050 Massachusetts Avenue
Cambridge, MA 02138
September 2020, Revised March 2021
The views expressed herein are those of the authors and do not necessarily reflect the views of the
National Bureau of Economic Research.
NBER working papers are circulated for discussion and comment purposes. They have not been
peer-reviewed or been subject to the review by the NBER Board of Directors that accompanies
official NBER publications.
© 2020 by Francine D. Blau, Josefine Koebe, and Pamela A. Meyerhofer. All rights reserved.
Short sections of text, not to exceed two paragraphs, may be quoted without explicit permission
provided that full credit, including © notice, is given to the source.
Who are the Essential and Frontline Workers?
Francine D. Blau, Josefine Koebe, and Pamela A. Meyerhofer
NBER Working Paper No. 27791
September 2020, Revised March 2021
JEL No. J15,J16,J21
ABSTRACT
Identifying essential and frontline workers and understanding their characteristics is useful for
policymakers and researchers in targeting social insurance and safety net policies in response to
the COVID-19 crisis and allocating scarce resources like personal protective equipment (PPE)
and vaccines. We develop a working definition and provide data on the demographic and labor
market composition of these workers. We first apply the official industry guidelines issued by the
Department of Homeland Security (DHS) in March 2020 to microdata from the 2018 and 2019
American Community Survey to identify essential workers regardless of actual operation status
of their industry. We then use the feasibility of work from home in the worker’s occupation group
(Dingel and Neiman 2020) to identify those most likely to be frontline workers who worked in-
person early in the COVID-19 crisis in March/April 2020. In a third step, we exclude industries
that were shutdown or running under limited demand at that time (Vavra, 2020). We find that the
broader group of essential workers comprises a large share of the labor force and tends to mirror
its demographic and labor market characteristics. In contrast, the narrower category of frontline
workers is, on average, less educated, has lower wages, and has a higher representation of men,
disadvantaged minorities, especially Hispanics, and immigrants. These results hold even when
excluding industries that were shutdown or operating at a limited level. Results for essential and
frontline workers are similar when accounting for changes in the federal guidelines over time by
using the December 2020 guidelines which include a few additional groups of workers, including
the education sector.
Francine D. Blau Pamela A. Meyerhofer
ILR School Department of Agricultural Economics and Economics
Cornell University MSU- Bozeman
268 Ives Hall PO Box 172920
Ithaca, New York 14853-3901 and Bozeman, MT 59715
NBER pamela.meyerhofer@montana.edu
fdb4@cornell.edu
Josefine Koebe
Department Education and Family
DIW Berlin
Mohrenstr. 58
10117 Berlin
Germany
jkoebe@diw.de
Who are the Essential and Frontline Workers?
Francine D. Blau (Cornell University, NBER, DIW, IZA, CESifo)
Josefine Koebe (DIW Berlin / Universität Hamburg)
Pamela A. Meyerhofer (Montana State University)
March 2021
ABSTRACT
Identifying essential and frontline workers and understanding their characteristics is
useful for policymakers and researchers in targeting social insurance and safety net policies in
response to the COVID-19 crisis and allocating scarce resources like personal protective
equipment (PPE) and vaccines. We develop a working definition and provide data on the
demographic and labor market composition of these workers. We first apply the official industry
guidelines issued by the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) in March 2020 to microdata
from the 2018 and 2019 American Community Survey to identify essential workers regardless of
actual operation status of their industry. We then use the feasibility of work from home in the
worker’s occupation group (Dingel and Neiman 2020) to identify those most likely to be
frontline workers who worked in-person early in the COVID-19 crisis in March/April 2020. In a
third step, we exclude industries that were shutdown or running under limited demand at that
time (Vavra, 2020). We find that the broader group of essential workers comprises a large share
of the labor force and tends to mirror its demographic and labor market characteristics. In
contrast, the narrower category of frontline workers is, on average, less educated, has lower
wages, and has a higher representation of men, disadvantaged minorities, especially Hispanics,
and immigrants. These results hold even when excluding industries that were shutdown or
operating at a limited level. Results for essential and frontline workers are similar when
accounting for changes in the federal guidelines over time by using the December 2020
guidelines which include a few additional groups of workers, including the education sector.
INTRODUCTION
The COVID-19 pandemic has required the identification of essential workers who are vital for
the core functioning of societal infrastructure. Formation of policies to protect and meet the
needs of these essential workers and to allocate scarce resources like personal protective
equipment (PPE) and vaccines depends on knowing their composition and characteristics.
However, identifying essential workers is not straightforward. The definition of essential work
may differ by state or even locality and change rapidly over time. Moreover, the risk essential
workers face is influenced by whether they are frontline workers who must provide their labor in
person or whether they can work from home. As some industries, even those deemed essential,
may at times be mostly shut down or facing steep decreases in demand, who is really at work
also depends on the current shutdown or demand status of their industry.
We address these data issues to provide information on the characteristics of essential
workers and, more specifically, frontline workers. We begin by applying the official industry
guidelines issued by the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) Cybersecurity and
Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA) in March 2020 to microdata from the 2018 and 2019
American Community Survey (ACS) to identify the broader group of essential workers. 1 We
then use data on the feasibility of work from home in the worker’s occupation group (Dingel and
Neiman 2020) to identify those most likely to be frontline workers. We find that the broader
group of essential workers comprises a large share of the labor force and tends to mirror its
demographic characteristics. In contrast, frontline workers are a less educated, lower wage
group, with a higher representation of men, disadvantaged minorities, especially Hispanics, and
1
Previous versions of this paper used 2017 and 2018 ACS data as the 2019 data was not available at the time.
1
immigrants, on average. Both conclusions remain unchanged when excluding industries that
were considered shutdown/diminished demand during the early stages of the COVID crisis
(Vavra, 2020). Results for essential and frontline workers are similar when accounting for
changes in the federal guidelines over time by using the December 2020 DHS guidelines which
include a few additional groups of workers, including workers in the education sector.
DATA AND METHODS
A common and clear-cut definition of essential workers would facilitate the rapidly evolving
social science literature on COVID-19. However, the designation of “essential” requires
interpretation and depends on the policy context. We propose a three-step approach narrowing
from essential industries to “frontline” workers to “frontline excluding shutdown industries”,
capturing those who provide their labor in person in active industries.
First, although various states and cities under lockdown have applied their own
definitions of essential, the federal guidelines provide a logical starting point for an analysis of
essential workers. Thus, we begin with the federal guidelines listing essential infrastructure
workers during the COVID-19 epidemic who “protect their communities, while ensuring
continuity of functions critical to public health and safety, as well as economic and national
security” issued by the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) Cybersecurity and
Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA) on March 28, 2020. 2 We translate the 14 categories that
are defined as essential critical infrastructure sectors into the North American Industry
Classification System (NAICS), identifying 196 out of overall 287 industry categories as
essential. By matching the qualitative information from the DHS into the NAICS 2017 four-digit
2
https://www.cisa.gov/sites/default/files/publications/CISA_Guidance_on_the_Essential_Critical_Infrastructure_Wo
rkforce_Version_2.0_1.pdf
2
industry classification, we attempt to refrain from subjective decision-making to the maximum
extent possible by including all DHS-designated industries regardless of actual operation. This
approximation of essential workers that we proposed in an Econofact memo (Blau et al., 2020)
has also been used in Montenovo et al. (2020) and Gupta et al. (2020), both studying various
COVID-19 repercussions on the labor market.
In a second step, we identify frontline workers by focusing on a subcategory of essential
workers; those in occupation groups where a third or less of workers can feasibly work from
home based on analysis by Dingel and Neiman (2020). They construct a work-from-home
measure using pre-pandemic surveys from the Occupational Information Network that describe
the typical experience of US workers to classify occupations at the major group (2 digit) level as
able or unable to be done entirely from home. Making use of this measure allows us to focus on
the composition and characteristics of frontline workers, a subset of essential workers who
arguably face a higher level of risk of infection by providing their labor in person.
For the larger group of essential workers as well as the narrower subset of frontline
workers, in a third step we additionally exclude industries that were shutdown or running under
limited demand at the initial COVID-outbreak in March 2020 as identified by Vavra (2020), e.g.
restaurants and other food services, traveler accommodation, air transportation, and a number of
manufacturing industries.
Finally, we account for changes in the federal guidelines over time by comparing the
groups defined above to the essential and frontline workers using guidelines issued by DHS
CISA on December 16, 2020. 3 The December 2020 DHS guidelines differ from those issued in
3
The guidelines issued on December 16, 2020 (version 4) are identical to the August 2020 (version 3). The
December guidelines are available here:
3
March 2020 in adding the education sector, automobile dealers, other motor vehicle dealers,
sporting good stores, and office supply stores. For the December 2020 breakdowns, we do not
present results excluding shutdown industries as these were far fewer and more heterogeneous
across states than they were in the early stages of the COVID-19 crisis in the U.S. in March
2020.
FINDINGS
We begin by presenting our findings using the March 2020 DHS guidelines. We then explore
how our results are affected when updated based on the December 2020 DHS guidelines that
include the education sector as well as some other additional categories.
ESSENTIAL WORKERS: MARCH 2020
Tables 1 and 2 show our results for essential and frontline workers at the aggregate level
and, for frontline workers (our primary focus), separately at the major (2-digit) occupation level
using the March 2020 definitions. Table 1 reports demographic characteristics and Table 2
reports labor market characteristics. As may be seen in the tables, essential workers, using this
definition, comprise a large and varied group. Overall, they make up 70% of all workers (see
Panel A in Tables 1 and 2). Women are well represented, although the female share (44%) is
somewhat lower than for the labor force as a whole (47%). The other demographic
characteristics of essential workers are also very similar to the general labor market on the
aggregate level, although they are slightly more likely to be Hispanics or immigrants (foreign
born) and have somewhat lower educational attainment (see Panel A in Table 1). The share of
workers in predominantly (70%+) female and predominantly (30%-) male occupations (as
https://www.cisa.gov/sites/default/files/publications/ECIW_4.0_Guidance_on_Essential_Critical_Infrastructure_Wo
rkers_Final3_508_0.pdf
4
classified based on 4 digit occupational categories) is broadly similar between essential and all
workers, although a somewhat larger share of essential workers are in predominantly male
occupations as shown in Panel A of Table 2. Average wages of essential workers are virtually
the same as for all workers and about the same share of essential workers as all workers earn low
wages (in the bottom quartile of the overall wage distribution) and high wages (in the top quartile
of the overall wage distribution). 4 Taking into account the shutdown in the early stage of the
crisis by excluding workers in affected industries does substantially reduce the estimated number
of essential workers — to 60% of all workers; with average wages somewhat higher at $28.42
(compared to $27.05 for all workers). However, the demographic characteristics of essential
workers are almost identical when excluding shutdown and limited demand industries.
FRONTLINE WORKERS: MARCH 2020
Frontline workers also vary but come disproportionately from socio-economically
disadvantaged groups compared to the overall workforce (see Panel A in Table 1) and receive
lower wages on average (Panel A in Table 2). Frontline workers include (but are not limited to)
health care workers, protective service workers (police and EMS), cashiers in grocery and
general merchandise stores, production and food processing workers, janitors and maintenance
workers, agricultural workers, and truck drivers. Such workers constitute 43% of all workers.
While women are overly represented in a number of specific frontline occupations, the average
female share of frontline workers (39%) is lower than for essential workers as a whole. Frontline
workers are on average less well educated than all workers, with a higher share comprised of
high school dropouts and a lower share having a college degree or higher. They also have a
4
Wages are calculated by dividing annual wages by the product of usual hours per week worked and usual weeks
per year worked. Wages are adjusted to 2019 dollars.
5
considerably higher share of Hispanics and a somewhat higher share of Blacks. Immigrants are
also disproportionately represented. Average wages of frontline workers ($22.76) are lower than
those of all workers and essential workers. A higher share of frontline workers earns low wages
(in the bottom quartile) and a smaller share earns high wages (in the top quartile).
As would be expected, health care workers comprise an important share — 20% of
frontline workers (see Panel B in Tables 1 and 2). Heath care workers include two major
occupational categories: (i) healthcare practitioners and technical occupations and (ii) health care
support. Practitioners and technical occupations, including doctors, registered nurses and
pharmacists (among others), constitute the bulk of health care workers (69%). They are a
relatively highly educated, high paying group. While doctors are still a majority male occupation,
overall, women comprise a majority of health care practitioners (75%). Health support workers,
such as nursing assistants and home health aides, constitute the remainder of health care workers.
They are an even more heavily female group (86%). In contrast to health care practitioners, they
are a relatively less well educated and low wage group. Additionally, this group is majority non-
white (55%, including 25% Black and 20% Hispanic), immigrants are more heavily represented,
and a substantial share are single mothers (23% compared to 8% of frontline workers and all
workers), suggesting they may face greater childcare burdens.
Sales and related occupations in essential industries also constitute a large share of
frontline workers, 15%. Women constitute a little under half of all workers in this occupation
group, with a quarter of workers employed in predominantly female occupations. Overall, the
average wage is slightly below that for all workers and an above average share earn wages in the
6
bottom quartile. Almost a quarter of workers in this group are cashiers at essential retailers such
as grocery stories and general merchandise stores. 5
A number of heavily male, blue collar categories together constitute a large share of
frontline occupations, including transportation and material moving occupations (14%),
production occupations (11%), construction and extraction (10%), building and grounds cleaning
and maintenance (6%), installation maintenance and repair (6%), as well as farming, fishing and
forestry occupations (2%). Average wages for workers in these occupation groups are
substantially below the average for all workers.
Protective service occupations constitute another crucial component of the frontline
workforce, accounting for 4% of frontline workers. This is a primarily male category that earns
about the same wage as the average for all workers.
If we take the estimates of closures and greatly reduced demand into account in
measuring the frontline workforce (see Panel A in Tables 1 and 2), the estimated number of
frontline workers is substantially reduced — to 34% of all workers. The percent female in the
occupation declines slightly to 38% and average wages rise somewhat to $24.00. However, our
basic conclusion that the frontline group is disproportionately comprised of less educated,
disadvantaged minority (especially Hispanic), and immigrant workers, earning below average
wages and with a substantial share of workers in the bottom quartile, remains unchanged.
Considering shutdown industries is of particular relevance for food preparation and serving
occupations which potentially comprise a substantial share of frontline workers (10%), but the
smallest share (1.6%) when taking shutdown into account (see Panel C in Tables 1 and 2). While
5
In results not shown, cashiers are 72% female, 44% non-white, and 62% earn wages in the lowest quartile of all
workers.
7
some were working and taking the risk of exposure to clients at the early stage of the pandemic,
the majority were unemployed. For both definitions this is a majority female and very a low
wage occupation group on average.
EDUCATORS
The most significant change in the federal guidelines defining essential and thus also
frontline workers in December 2020 was the addition of the education sector. Education moved
almost universally to virtual instruction in the Spring of 2020, excluding educators from the
essential and frontline definitions. By Fall 2020 and into early 2021 many, though far from all,
districts and institutions had moved to mixed or in-person instruction. 6 Table 3 shows the
demographic and occupational characteristics of workers in education occupations by industry,
within the education sector. We focus on this occupation category to provide results that are
comparable to those for other occupation groups in Panel B of Tables 1 and 2. 7
As may be seen in the table, educators are a sizable group, making up 14% of frontline
workers and 6% of all workers using the December 2020 definitions. As a whole, educators are
more female (72%), more white (72%), and more educated (81% hold a BA or higher) than the
labor force as a whole as well as other essential and frontline workers (Table 3, Panel A). The
well-above average percent female is driven by the large share who are employees in primary
and secondary schools, 78% of whom are female. Educators earn average wages overall and
have a lower than average share of low wage workers, with workers in colleges, universities, and
professional schools earning well above average wages.
6
According to Dingel and Neiman (2020), 85 % of educators can work from home, which would exclude them from
our frontline definition of 33% of workers being unable to work home. We nonetheless include them in our
December 2020 frontline worker group because at that time many were teaching in person and were required to do
so. As of March 8, 2021, K-12 educators were officially eligible for vaccination in all U.S. states (Robertson 2021).
7
Overall, workers in education occupations constitute 56.3% of employees in the education sector.
8
ESSENTIAL AND FRONTLINE: DECEMBER 2020
Table 4 replicates Panel A from Tables 1 and 2 adding the group averages for December
2020 essential and frontline workers for comparison. 8 The main difference between the
December and earlier March definitions is the inclusion of the education sector. As mentioned
above, we do not include shutdown versions of the December definitions. December essential
workers make up an even larger share (82%) of the entire workforce and continue to have
demographic and labor market characteristics that are almost identical to all workers. Because
educators are highly educated, the main difference between March frontline workers and
December frontline workers is that 26% of December frontline workers hold a BA or higher
while this was true of only 19% of March frontline workers. Overall, however, frontline workers
remain less well educated than all workers, with a higher share of workers without a high school
degree and a lower share with a BA or higher. The inclusion of workers in the education sector
also increases the share of frontline workers who are female, from 39 to 43 percent, but this
remains below the female share of all workers. While there are some differences, our overall
conclusions regarding the composition of frontline workers remain the same using the December
definitions: frontline workers are, on average, a less educated group, with a higher representation
of men, disadvantaged minorities (especially Hispanics), and immigrants, and are lower paid
than all workers with a larger share in the low wage quartile.
OTHER ESTIMATES
As noted above, the DHS guidelines must be interpreted to translate them into industry
codes. In this section, we briefly compare our results to two other studies that provide estimates
of essential workers by interpreting the guidelines: Tomer and Kane (2020) and Kearney and
8
Table A1 shows the share of December frontline for each occupation group, including education occupations.
9
Pardue (2020). 9 Tomer and Kane (2020) estimate that 34% to 43% of the overall workforce may
be deemed essential. While notably lower than our estimate of essential workers, their definition
is similar to what we call frontline workers, who make up 42.8% of the total workforce (frontline
excluding shutdown makes up 33.7%, similar to the lower bound of their estimate). In addition to
excluding several manufacturing industries that we include, Tomer and Kane (2020) additionally
exclude restaurants and food services, child care services, agricultural industries, and military
that are described as essential by DHS though may not be fully operational. Like our frontline
results, they find these workers face larger risk due to work environments requiring close
proximity but earn lower wages and are less likely to have health insurance.
Kearney and Pardue (2020) estimate that 53% of the overall workforce are essential
workers. Using our data and their essential industry classification, 63% of the overall workforce
would be deemed essential. Their estimate is similar to our “essential excluding shutdown”
measure which makes up 59.5% of the overall workforce. Like our shutdown definition, Kearney
and Pardue exclude food services and traveler accommodations. Also in line with our analysis,
they find that essential workers are very similar to the overall labor force, but this is not the case
when divided by ability to work from home. Those working in person are disproportionately
lower wage, less educated, and non-white workers just as our frontline workers are.
Overall, despite the difficulty to clearly identify essential workers due to the broad
language used in the guidelines, we believe our measure of essential workers as well as our step-
wise approach narrowing down to frontline workers provides the most complete picture to study
those differentially impacted by in person work and exposure to the virus. Additionally, to the
best of our knowledge, our paper is first to update results as the guidelines have evolved.
9
Both studies have publicly shared their coding definitions for replication.
10
DISCUSSION AND CONCLUSION
During the course of COVID-19, we relied on a subset of essential workers to meet our basic
needs while significant portions of the population isolated at home. While some essential
workers could themselves work from home, this was not feasible for a significant share of
people, whom we designate as frontline workers, who must take on considerable risk to do their
jobs. Although there is variation within this group, we have found that frontline workers are
disproportionately comprised of less educated and disadvantaged minority workers, especially
Hispanics, and immigrants, and earn below average wages, with a substantial share of workers in
the bottom wage quartile. These workers, even healthcare workers, now face much higher risks
than traditionally incurred in these occupations. Identifying essential and frontline workers and
understanding their characteristics is useful for policymakers in targeting social insurance,
personal protective equipment, and vaccine distribution in response to the COVID-19 crisis and
researchers estimating the impact of the pandemic on different groups.
11
References
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Workforce: Ensuring Community and National Resilience in COVID-19 Response Version 2.0.
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Vavra, J.S. (2020). Shutdown Sectors Represent Large Share of All US Employment. Becker
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13
Table 1: Demographic Characteristics of Essential and Frontline Workers: March 2020
% Frontline
% Other % Single % Some % BA or %
% Female % White % Black % Hispanic % Asian % Immigrant % < HS % HS N % All excl.
Race Mother College higher Frontline
Shutdown
Panel A: Group Averages
All 0.47 0.62 0.12 0.18 0.06 0.03 0.19 0.08 0.09 0.24 0.31 0.35 3,042,378
Essential 0.44 0.60 0.12 0.19 0.06 0.03 0.20 0.08 0.10 0.27 0.33 0.30 2,128,330 70.0%
Essential excl. Shutdown 0.44 0.62 0.12 0.18 0.06 0.03 0.19 0.08 0.09 0.26 0.32 0.33 1,809,150 59.5%
Frontline 0.39 0.57 0.13 0.22 0.05 0.03 0.22 0.08 0.14 0.33 0.34 0.19 1,301,854 42.8%
Frontline excl. Shutdown 0.38 0.58 0.13 0.22 0.05 0.03 0.21 0.08 0.13 0.32 0.33 0.21 1,025,969 33.7%
Panel B: Frontline by Occupation Group
Healthcare Practitioners and Technical Occupations 0.75 0.67 0.11 0.09 0.10 0.03 0.17 0.11 0.01 0.06 0.33 0.60 183,208 14.1%
Healthcare Support 0.86 0.45 0.25 0.20 0.07 0.03 0.24 0.23 0.10 0.31 0.46 0.13 81,774 6.3%
Protective Service Occupations 0.22 0.59 0.20 0.15 0.03 0.03 0.11 0.05 0.03 0.24 0.46 0.28 55,699 4.3%
Food Preparation and Serving Occupations 0.53 0.51 0.13 0.26 0.07 0.04 0.23 0.10 0.23 0.34 0.34 0.09 132,965 10.2%
Building and Grounds Cleaning and Maintenance Occupation 0.39 0.42 0.14 0.39 0.03 0.03 0.38 0.11 0.29 0.41 0.23 0.07 73,099 5.6%
Personal Care and Service Occupations 0.80 0.56 0.16 0.21 0.05 0.03 0.20 0.15 0.12 0.30 0.40 0.18 22,974 1.8%
Sales and Related Occupations 0.48 0.65 0.10 0.16 0.06 0.03 0.15 0.08 0.09 0.27 0.35 0.29 192,579 14.8%
Farming, Fishing, and Forestry Occupations 0.24 0.42 0.04 0.51 0.02 0.02 0.45 0.06 0.44 0.31 0.17 0.08 19,911 1.5%
Construction and Extraction Occupations 0.03 0.55 0.06 0.35 0.01 0.02 0.30 0.01 0.24 0.43 0.27 0.06 135,904 10.4%
Installation, Maintenaince, and Repair Workers 0.04 0.67 0.08 0.20 0.03 0.03 0.17 0.01 0.11 0.41 0.41 0.07 77,228 5.9%
Production Occupations 0.26 0.57 0.13 0.22 0.05 0.02 0.22 0.06 0.15 0.44 0.32 0.09 134,555 10.3%
Transportation and Material Moving Occupations 0.19 0.53 0.18 0.22 0.04 0.03 0.21 0.04 0.15 0.44 0.31 0.10 180,599 13.9%
Panel C: Frontline excluding Shutdown by Occupation Group
Healthcare Practitioners and Technical Occupations 0.75 0.67 0.12 0.09 0.10 0.03 0.17 0.11 0.01 0.06 0.33 0.60 175,294 17.1%
Healthcare Support 0.85 0.44 0.26 0.19 0.07 0.03 0.25 0.23 0.10 0.32 0.45 0.13 75,884 7.4%
Protective Service Occupations 0.21 0.59 0.19 0.15 0.03 0.03 0.10 0.05 0.02 0.23 0.46 0.29 54,278 5.3%
Food Preparation and Serving Occupations 0.62 0.53 0.19 0.19 0.06 0.03 0.20 0.14 0.18 0.40 0.33 0.08 16,630 1.6%
Building and Grounds Cleaning and Maintenance Occupation 0.35 0.44 0.13 0.39 0.02 0.02 0.37 0.10 0.29 0.41 0.24 0.07 63,202 6.2%
Personal Care and Service Occupations 0.83 0.57 0.15 0.21 0.04 0.03 0.20 0.16 0.12 0.30 0.40 0.18 21,126 2.1%
Sales and Related Occupations 0.47 0.68 0.09 0.15 0.05 0.03 0.15 0.08 0.07 0.26 0.36 0.32 169,471 16.5%
Farming, Fishing, and Forestry Occupations 0.24 0.42 0.04 0.51 0.02 0.02 0.45 0.06 0.44 0.31 0.17 0.08 19,888 1.9%
Construction and Extraction Occupations 0.03 0.55 0.06 0.36 0.01 0.02 0.30 0.01 0.24 0.43 0.27 0.06 134,048 13.1%
Installation, Maintenaince, and Repair Workers 0.04 0.67 0.08 0.20 0.03 0.03 0.16 0.01 0.11 0.41 0.40 0.07 68,626 6.7%
Production Occupations 0.26 0.57 0.12 0.23 0.06 0.02 0.23 0.06 0.16 0.43 0.32 0.09 112,688 11.0%
Transportation and Material Moving Occupations 0.17 0.54 0.17 0.23 0.03 0.03 0.19 0.04 0.16 0.46 0.30 0.07 139,722 13.6%
Notes: 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 charateristics 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.
14
Table 2: Labor Market Characteristics of Essential and Frontline Workers: March 2020
Female Male Hourly % Frontline
% Low % High
Dominated Dominated wages N % All % Frontline excl.
Wage Wage
Occ Occ ($) Shutdown
Panel A: Group Averages
All 0.28 0.30 $27.05 0.25 0.25 3,042,378
Essential 0.26 0.35 $27.10 0.24 0.25 2,128,330 70.0%
Essential excl. Shutdown 0.26 0.37 $28.42 0.22 0.27 1,809,150 59.5%
Frontline 0.26 0.44 $22.76 0.30 0.18 1,301,854 42.8%
Frontline excl. Shutdown 0.24 0.48 $24.00 0.27 0.20 1,025,969 33.7%
Panel B: Frontline by Occupation Group
Healthcare Practitioners and Technical Occupations 0.70 0.04 $41.30 0.09 0.47 183,208 14.1%
Healthcare Support 0.99 0.00 $16.33 0.36 0.06 81,774 6.3%
Protective Service Occupations 0.01 0.92 $27.96 0.14 0.30 55,699 4.3%
Food Preparation and Serving Occupations 0.30 0.09 $13.31 0.53 0.04 132,965 10.2%
Building and Grounds Cleaning and Maintenance Occupation 0.24 0.31 $14.23 0.48 0.06 73,099 5.6%
Personal Care and Service Occupations 0.68 0.05 $12.75 0.57 0.05 22,974 1.8%
Sales and Related Occupations 0.26 0.14 $26.11 0.34 0.22 192,579 14.8%
Farming, Fishing, and Forestry Occupations 0.00 0.93 $14.30 0.47 0.05 19,911 1.5%
Construction and Extraction Occupations 0.00 1.00 $20.85 0.28 0.18 135,904 10.4%
Installation, Maintenaince, and Repair Workers 0.00 1.00 $23.64 0.18 0.22 77,228 5.9%
Production Occupations 0.00 0.50 $20.97 0.20 0.14 134,555 10.3%
Transportation and Material Moving Occupations 0.01 0.78 $19.69 0.31 0.11 180,599 13.9%
Panel C: Frontline excluding Shutdown by Occupation Group
Healthcare Practitioners and Technical Occupations 0.71 0.02 $40.63 0.09 0.47 175,294 17.1%
Healthcare Support 0.98 0.00 $16.10 0.37 0.05 75,884 7.4%
Protective Service Occupations 0.00 0.93 $28.20 0.13 0.31 54,278 5.3%
Food Preparation and Serving Occupations 0.05 0.10 $14.22 0.48 0.03 16,630 1.6%
Building and Grounds Cleaning and Maintenance Occupation 0.19 0.36 $14.16 0.48 0.06 63,202 6.2%
Personal Care and Service Occupations 0.73 0.05 $12.39 0.59 0.05 21,126 2.1%
Sales and Related Occupations 0.20 0.15 $27.76 0.31 0.24 169,471 16.5%
Farming, Fishing, and Forestry Occupations 0.00 0.93 $14.30 0.47 0.05 19,888 1.9%
Construction and Extraction Occupations 0.00 1.00 $20.77 0.28 0.17 134,048 13.1%
Installation, Maintenaince, and Repair Workers 0.00 1.00 $23.20 0.19 0.21 68,626 6.7%
Production Occupations 0.00 0.52 $20.88 0.20 0.14 112,688 11.0%
Transportation and Material Moving Occupations 0.00 0.79 $18.80 0.29 0.10 139,722 13.6%
Notes: This table lists labor market 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 labor market characteristics at the major (2-digit) occupation group level for
frontline workers, while Panel C additionally excludes shutdown industries. Labor market charateristics consist of the share of females, share of workers that work in
predominantly female 4-digit occupations (70 percent or more of workers are female) or predominantly male 4-digit occupations (30 percent or less of the workers are female),
hourly wages (income in 2019 dollars using the CPI divided by the product of usual hours worked per week and the mid-point of usual weeks worked per year), share of workers
earning low wages (in the bottom quartile of the overall wage distribution) and high wages (in the top quartile of the overall wage distribution). Military is excluded as an
15
Table 3: Demographic and Labor Market Characteristics of Workers in Education Occupations (within Education Sector)
Panel A: Education Demographics by Industry
% Other % Single % Some % BA or
% Female % White % Black % Hispanic % Asian % Immigrant % < HS % HS
Race Mother College higher
Education 0.72 0.72 0.09 0.11 0.06 0.03 0.14 0.08 0.01 0.05 0.13 0.81
Elementary and secondary schools 0.78 0.73 0.10 0.12 0.03 0.02 0.10 0.09 0.01 0.05 0.12 0.82
Colleges, universities, and professional schools 0.51 0.69 0.07 0.08 0.14 0.03 0.24 0.03 0.01 0.02 0.11 0.86
Business, technical, and trade schools and training 0.57 0.74 0.07 0.11 0.05 0.03 0.14 0.06 0.02 0.14 0.32 0.52
Other schools and instruction, and educational support services 0.67 0.69 0.07 0.11 0.10 0.03 0.16 0.05 0.05 0.09 0.24 0.62
Panel B: Education Labor Market Characteristics by Industry
Female Male
Hourly % Low % High
Dominated Dominated N % All % Frontline
wages ($) Wage Wage
Occ Occ
Education 0.64 0.00 $27.96 0.17 0.27 174,602 5.7% 13.4%
Elementary and secondary schools 0.82 0.00 $26.59 0.15 0.24 128,327 4.2% 9.9%
Colleges, universities, and professional schools 0.13 0.00 $35.46 0.16 0.40 36,651 1.2% 2.8%
Business, technical, and trade schools and training 0.19 0.00 $26.72 0.23 0.28 923 0.0% 0.1%
Other schools and instruction, and educational support services 0.10 0.00 $17.63 0.49 0.13 8,701 0.3% 0.7%
Notes: This table lists demographic and occupational characteristics of educators (those in NAICS industries 7860, 7870, 7880, and 7890 with occupation code between 2200 and 2555). Demographic charateristics 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). Labor market charateristics consist of the share of females, share of workers that work in predominantly female 4-digit occupations (70 percent or more of workers are female) or predominantly male 4-digit occupations
(30 percent or less of the workers are female), hourly wages (income in 2019 dollars using the CPI divided by the product of usual hours worked per week and the mid-point of usual weeks worked per year), share of workers earning
low wages (in the bottom quartile of the overall wage distribution) and high wages (in the top quartile of the overall wage distribution).
16
Table 4: Demographic and Labor Market Characteristics of Essential and Frontline Workers March v. December 2020
Panel A: Demographic Characteristics by Group
% Other % % Single % Some % BA or
% Female % White % Black % Hispanic % Asian % < HS % HS
Race Immigrant Mother College higher
All 0.47 0.62 0.12 0.18 0.06 0.03 0.19 0.08 0.09 0.24 0.31 0.35
March 2020- Essential 0.44 0.60 0.12 0.19 0.06 0.03 0.20 0.08 0.10 0.27 0.33 0.30
March 2020 - Essential excl. Shutdown 0.44 0.62 0.12 0.18 0.06 0.03 0.19 0.08 0.09 0.26 0.32 0.33
March 2020- Frontline 0.39 0.57 0.13 0.22 0.05 0.03 0.22 0.08 0.14 0.33 0.34 0.19
March 2020 - Frontline excl. Shutdown 0.38 0.58 0.13 0.22 0.05 0.03 0.21 0.08 0.13 0.32 0.33 0.21
December 2020 - Essential 0.46 0.62 0.12 0.18 0.06 0.03 0.19 0.08 0.09 0.25 0.31 0.34
December 2020 - Frontline 0.43 0.58 0.13 0.21 0.05 0.03 0.21 0.08 0.13 0.30 0.32 0.26
Panel B: Occupational Characteristics by Group
Female Male
Hourly % Low % High
Dominated Dominated N % All
wages ($) Wage Wage
Occ Occ
All 0.28 0.30 $27.05 0.25 0.25 3,042,378
March 2020 - Essential 0.26 0.35 $27.10 0.24 0.25 2,128,330 70.0%
March 2020 - Essential excluding Shutdown 0.26 0.37 $28.42 0.22 0.27 1,809,150 59.5%
March 2020 - Frontline 0.26 0.44 $22.76 0.30 0.18 1,301,854 42.8%
March 2020 - Frontline excluding Shutdown 0.24 0.48 $24.00 0.27 0.20 1,025,969 33.7%
December 2020 - Essential 0.28 0.31 $27.03 0.24 0.25 2,481,637 81.6%
December 2020 - Frontline 0.29 0.38 $23.16 0.29 0.19 1,578,959 51.9%
Notes: This table lists demographic and occupational 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 and December 16, 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). Demographic charateristics 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). Labor market charateristics consist of the share of females,
share of workers that work in predominantly female 4-digit occupations (70 percent or more of workers are female) or predominantly male 4-digit occupations (30 percent or less of the workers
are female), hourly wages (income in 2019 dollars using the CPI divided by the product of usual hours worked per week and the mid-point of usual weeks worked per year), share of workers
earning low wages (in the bottom quartile of the overall wage distribution) and high wages (in the top quartile of the overall wage distribution). Military is excluded as an occupation group, so
share does not sum to 100.
17
Table A1. Occupation Group as Share of December 2020 Frontline
% Dec
Occupation Group N
Frontline
Education Occupations 194,281 12.3%
Healthcare Practitioners and Technical Occupations 191,311 12.1%
Healthcare Support 82,599 5.2%
Protective Service Occupations 58,607 3.7%
Food Preparation and Serving Occupations 140,681 8.9%
Building and Grounds Cleaning and Maintenance Occupations 84,698 5.4%
Personal Care and Service Occupations 30,429 1.9%
Sales and Related Occupations 212,110 13.4%
Farming, Fishing, and Forestry Occupations 20,006 1.3%
Construction and Extraction Occupations 137,182 8.7%
Installation, Maintenaince, and Repair Workers 85,846 5.4%
Production Occupations 137,013 8.7%
Transportation and Material Moving Occupations 192,837 12.2%
Notes: This table lists count of frontline workers by occupational group and share of
December Frontline workers. Essential workers are identified by mapping official industry
guidelines issued by the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) on December 16, 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). Military is excluded as an occupation group, so share does not
sum to 100.
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