Gabe contributes to CityLab report on cities most affected by pandemic

Todd Gabe, a professor of resource economics and policy at the University of Maine, conducted analysis with Richard Florida, co-founder and editor at large of CityLab and a senior editor at The Atlantic, for the CityLab article “The Coronavirus Class Divide in Cities.” They identified cities and metro areas where workforces are most exposed and at risk from COVID-19. Gabe used data from the Bureau of Labor Statistics O*NET survey to focus on two key at-risk characteristics: the degree to which workers interact directly with the public and jobs that require high levels of close physical proximity to others, according to the report. Based on their percentage of workers who interact directly with the public, they found that cities such as Las Vegas, Miami, Pittsburgh, Providence, Rhode Island, Tuscan, Arizona, and the Greater New York City area are among the major metropolitan areas that are vulnerable to the virus based on the number of workers they have who work in close physical proximity to others, who work directly with the public, or both.