This article examines government employees’ experience and expectation of socioeconomic hardships during the COVID-19 pandemic—employment income loss, housing instability, and food insufficiency—by focusing on the role of gender and race. Employing the Household Pulse Survey, a nationally representative and near real-time pandemic data deployed by the U.S. Census Bureau, we find that government employees were less affected by the pandemic than non-government employees across socioeconomic hardships. However, female and racial minorities, when investigated within government employees, have a worse experience and expectation of pandemic hardships than men and non-Hispanic Whites. Our findings suggest a clear gender gap and racial disparities in the experience and expectation of pandemic hardships.

本文通过关注性别和种族的作用，研究了政府雇员在 COVID-19 大流行期间对社会经济困难的经历和预期——就业收入损失、住房不稳定和粮食不足。使用美国人口普查局部署的具有全国代表性的近乎实时的大流行数据“家庭脉搏调查”，我们发现，在社会经济困难时期，政府雇员比非政府雇员受大流行的影响要小。然而，与男性和非西班牙裔白人相比，在政府雇员内部进行调查时，女性和少数族裔对大流行困难的经历和期望更差。我们的研究结果表明，在大流行困难的经历和预期方面存在明显的性别差距和种族差异。