“New American Majority” Initiative launches survey to determine Black & Latinx families’ post-COVID needs

August 31. 2021

For Immediate Release
Aug 31, 2021

Media Contact
Nazirah Ahmad
[email protected]

Equal Rights Advocates, Insight Center, and National Black Child Development Institute will survey women in cities nationwide to determine recovery priorities, develop response strategies.

Equal Rights Advocates (ERA), the Insight Center for Community Economic Development, and the National Black Child Development Institute launched a national survey as part of the New American Majority Family Security Initiative, which will ask Black and Latinx women in 13 U.S. cities what they and their families need most as they recover from the economic impacts of COVID-19. Equal Rights Advocates and its partners will use the survey responses to develop a holistic policy strategy to support and prioritize families of color over the next year and beyond.

The initiative is funded with generous support from The W.K. Kellogg Foundation, Blue Shield of California Foundation, Ms. Foundation, the Culture Change Fund of the Women’s Foundation California, the New York Women’s Foundation, and Women Donors Network Foundation of California.

This survey asks women how the pandemic and related economic crisis may have affected their families’ income, wages, and employment, as well as child care and caregiving needs, debt, savings, and future plans. In collaboration with ERA partner organizations, the National Black Child Development Institute will distribute the survey in 13 cities: Albuquerque, NM; Atlanta, GA; Chicago, IL; Dallas, TX; Detroit, MI; Houston, TX; Jackson, MS; Los Angeles, CA; Miami, FL; Minneapolis, MN; Newark, NJ; New York, NY; Oakland, CA; and Philadelphia, PA. The survey will be available in English and Spanish.

With partners in each city, ERA will use survey results to develop a broader policy agenda for 2022 that centers the priorities of women and their families. ERA and the Insight Center will develop a report setting forth survey findings and priorities of participating women and families. We will then engage trusted local and community leaders as messengers and organizers as we work to advance racial and gender equity.

Survey results will also be used to guide later discussion in a series of focus groups called “Kitchen Table Conversations,” which aim to collect stories and experiences to support, frame, reinforce, and authenticate survey data. This project will allow us to center the voices and experiences of Black and Latinx women as we reimagine a safer, more secure, and more prosperous country for all on the other side of the pandemic.

About the New American Majority Family Security Initiative

This survey is part of Equal Rights Advocates’ New American Majority Family Security Initiative. In collaboration with its partners, ERA is taking bold action with the goal of helping families emerge from the COVID-19 crisis safer and stronger than they entered it. The Initiative’s overall goals are to listen to Black and Latinx women’s stories and family priorities; conduct community-based research; develop responsive policy priorities; report back to and help mobilize communities around common goals; and begin the important work of narrative shifting through community storytelling. Survey responses will drive follow-up research, analysis, and reporting, and help track trends that will influence our future work.

The following are quotes from Initiative leaders and partners:

Noreen Farrell, Executive Director, Equal Rights Advocates:

“The past year exposed in a new way how our country’s systemic failures are especially harmful to women of color and their families. 2021 presents an opportunity for radical recovery and rebuilding that centers racial and gender equity. It is vitally important that we prioritize the work of transforming structures that have never served marginalized communities and reinvesting in core values, community needs, and bold policy solutions.”

Arianna Cisneros, Program Officer, W.K. Kellogg Foundation:

“The W.K. Kellogg Foundation promotes community leadership, power and authentic engagement. We’re proud to support Equal Rights Advocates as they gather input directly from Black and Latinx families around the country to inform policy efforts that are responsive to communities’ unique stories, strengths and needs.”

Anne Price, President, Insight Center:

“We know the pandemic response has not led to equal economic recovery along lines of race and gender. We hope the information we gain from this project helps us develop solutions for the disparities that existed prior to COVID-19 that were exacerbated over the past 18 months.”

National Black Child Development Institute:  “NBCDI has been advocating for Black children and families for over 50 years. NBCDI puts Black families at the center of our work and the foundation of that practice is the ability to listen. We are happy to support a project that will get direct feedback from families of color, and aid in advocates innovating ways to build a stronger country after the challenges of the COVID-19 pandemic.”