Are Stay-At-Home Orders More Difficult to Follow for Low-Income Groups?

In response to the COVID-19 pandemic, a growing number of states, counties and cities in the United States have issued mandatory stay-at-home orders as part of their efforts to slow down the spread of the virus. We argue that the consequences of this one-size-fits-all order will be differentially distributed among economic groups. In this paper, we examine social distance behavior changes for lower income populations. We conduct a comparative analysis of responses between lower-income and upper-income groups and assess their relative exposure to COVID-19 risks. Using a difference-in-difference-in-differences analysis of 3,140 counties between January 1 and April 15, 2020, we find evidence that stay-at-home orders led to overall improved social distancing. Additionally, we find social distance policy effects on the lower-income group is smaller than that of the upper-income group, by as much as 46% to 54%. We also examined the relationship between personal income, work-related trips, and essential businesses, as defined by the stay-at-home orders. We find that the stay-at-home orders do not reduce low income work trips statistically significantly. That is, a large share of workers in the essential businesses defined by the stay-at-home orders draw from lower-income populations