Editor's Note: (Elizabeth Brown is president pro tempore of Columbus City Council and executive director of the Ohio Women's Public Policy Network, a coalition of more than 30 organizations that advocate for public policies that build economic opportunity for women and families. The opinions expressed in this commentary are those of the author. Read more opinion on CNN.)
(CNN) On the west side of my city of Columbus, Ohio, Yolanda quietly dresses for work, careful not to disturb her kids. They'll sleep in today -- no school to rush to. She swallows, feeling the lump of anxiety in her throat and a worsening cold, too.
Yolanda considers calling off her shift, but she can't afford to. She heads out the door in time for her long day as a community health worker. Guilt and longing nag her as she clocks in. She's not home to help her children with homework, and she misses them.
This is not the description of a mother living through the Covid-19 pandemic. Yolanda first told me her story last year at Columbus City Hall, where I serve my city of 892,000 people as a council member. Yolanda's story is not unusual in Columbus or our nation, and it will remain the agonizing truth for millions more if we fail to heed what this crisis has shown us families require for the long haul.
As a parent, I am like millions of others right now doing everything I can to keep my family safe, happy and (sort of) homeschooled while working full time. My daughter and son have unrelenting needs: a snack, a paint spill, a dirty diaper. These days, the "labors of love" my husband and I perform around the clock are clouded by anxiety.
My heart crumples when our 4-year-old asks on my mother's birthday, "Is coronavirus how come I can't have a party for Nonna?" Later, like every millennial child of a boomer, I fire off pointed text directives to my parents, stepparents and in-laws to "be careful, for the love of god" each time they leave the house for groceries.
Many of these anxieties are new for my family. But parents like Yolanda have soldiered on for generations, despite a government that doesn't protect them. What a majority of us are now enduring -- lack of child care, fear for safety, limited access to food and navigating complicated government assistance programs -- are daily vulnerabilities long experienced by millions of US workers.
Largely women and disproportionately people of color, these same workers occupy the jobs we casually call low-skilled: grocery clerks, domestic workers and delivery drivers. While government officials now declare many of them essential, the market pegs their worth below a livable wage. For example, in Ohio the median annual salary for a cashier is $20,190, for a janitor it's $25,030, and a stock clerk makes an average of $24,880 per year. Imagine taking care of a family on that.
Then a global pandemic triggered the rapid unemployment of more than 30 million Americans.
Losses have been concentrated in the service sector, which means black and Latinx women will be hardest hit. Low-wage workers, who are labeled as nonessential during this time, now face the double jeopardy of prerecession financial hardship while being first in line for layoffs. There is no working from home for the hotel housekeeper.
The ensuing legislation by Congress and state legislatures is but an umbrella in a hurricane if this proves to be a short-term response, rather than first steps toward restructuring our economy into an equitable one.
With the Families First Coronavirus Response Act, Congress finally conceded that workers need paid time off to care for their family. While the program contains peculiar exemptions for employers of fewer than 50 and more than 500 people -- the majority of the workforce -- and can only be applied only toward caring for a child whose school or daycare is closed due to Covid-19, it is a 12-week lifeline for many parents.
But when it ends, what is the recourse for the 62% of workers -- those who can't afford or don't qualify for unpaid leave -- in my state who again will be left to choose between a paycheck and caring for a new baby or aging family member?
New regulations across the country also make the long-overdue admission that our changing economy means many families' primary incomes now come from part-time, contract or "gig" work. They are eligible -- for now -- for unemployment benefits. Will we pull the blindfold back on after the current crisis fades?
Each night, my husband and I do an NFL-style draft for the hours in the next day's schedule. When we reach a time slot with competing conference calls, yesterday's last-place finisher gets first pick, while the other settles for explaining away a screeching toddler to coworkers.
We scratch our initials onto the sacred grid that dictates which moments we will get to work in peace, as we abide the disappearance of so much productivity. My husband is a Cleveland Browns fan and used to disappointment. Sometimes, we whisper timid excitement about an eventual return to normalcy. Just the notion of it calls to us like a spring day.
Yet, we are nervous: What damage waits on the other side of this viral hurricane? For millions of Americans, we're not yet in the eye of the storm.
Yolanda and I recently caught up on the phone. We talked about the stress of parenting through Covid-19 and the demands of her job. It struck me again: In so many regards, Yolanda is fighting the same battles today she was fighting when we first met. As we hung up, she plaintively urged, "People are going to need help out here."
Our ability to climb out from underneath the economic rubble requires us to recognize that an economy is only as strong as its workers. We cannot afford to revel in our relief when the stay-at-home orders relax and life resumes to something recognizable.
Instead, let's hold onto the vulnerability. Let it fuel our demand for a recovery that invests in every family. Especially ones like Yolanda's.