PM Issues Committee chair Jonathan Cohn penned an editorial in CommonWealth with Karen Chen of the Chinese Progressive Association, Elena Letona of Neighbor to Neighbor, and Horace Small of the Union of Minority Neighborhoods about the need to strengthen the safety net in response to the pandemic. You can read an excerpt below and the full piece here.

LIFE UNDER QUARANTINE can easily cause many of us to lose track of time. But one date we should remember is this: Today marks one month since Gov. Charlie Baker issued a declaration of emergency.

Have our state policymakers been responding with the needed urgency? Not really.

The Legislature, now rightfully in remote function, has waived the one-week waiting period for unemployment insurance and allowed cities and towns to postpone local and special legislative elections (and took steps to expand voting access for new dates). These are important first steps. But without larger and more comprehensive action with an equity lens front and center, we risk leaving the most vulnerable populations—those who were already living in a state of emergency—behind.

Pandemics are not “great equalizers”: they underscore and exacerbate all of the inequalities that were already present.