In Las Vegas, the Coronavirus Odds Are Not in Our Favor – The New York Times

LAS VEGAS From the Stratosphere to the Mandalay Bay, Las Vegas is closed for business. With the exception of the security guards who remain perched outside casino entrances and occasional joggers, the Strip is deserted.

The haunting emptiness is a version of what many Americans are witnessing in the places they call home: vacant subways, wide open freeways and unoccupied city centers. But as measures to control the spread of the coronavirus shut down businesses across the country, those of us who live and work here in Vegas worry that well suffer more and longer than most.

On New Years Eve 2020, I worked one of my last shifts as a casino cocktail server. I sneaked out of the service well with my co-workers to watch the Strips fireworks alongside a crowd of thousands of tourists from all around the world. Thinking about leaving an industry in which Id spent almost a decade in was bittersweet. It will always be here if I want to come back, I told myself.

Just a few months later, the casinos are empty and my friends are out of work.

Like many other states, Nevada closed all nonessential businesses to stem the spread of the coronavirus. But here in Vegas, the majority of our economy is nonessential. Our economic well-being lives and dies by the booming and busting of a single, extremely fragile industry. This month last year, 3.5 million tourists visited here. A complete halt to the beating heart of our economy is devastating.

About 206,000 of Nevadas casino workers have been affected by the mandatory closings. The week after the shutdown, Nevadans set a record for the most unemployment claims in the states history: over 92,000. The Economic Policy Institute predicts that our unemployment rate will be 19.7 percent by summer.

Here, shutting down the hospitality industry means wiping out the economic security of entire families. In the past week, I havent just seen my friends lose jobs. Their spouses, parents, and their college-age and teenage kids that do full- or part-time service work are now unemployed, too.

The coronavirus pandemic awakens memories of the 2008 financial crisis. In fact, we have only recently recovered from that recession. It wasnt until 2016 that Nevada finally regained the nearly 175,000 jobs it lost during 2008, and at no point during that period did resort properties have to close operations completely.

But casino leaders seem to have learned from that time. Matthew Maddox, the chief executive of Wynn Resorts, cited the lessons of 2008 as the reason his 25,000 employees will still be paid during the mandatory closing. Some other casino leaders are also keeping workers on payrolls.

But the largest casino employer, MGM Resorts, which employees over 75,000 in Nevada, could only guarantee their furloughed workers two weeks of pay. And for those workers at small businesses or franchises that operate inside casino walls, layoffs are the new norm.

The federal governments passage of the $2 trillion stimulus bill, although historic, does not meet what the E.P.I. deems necessary to sustain wageworkers through this time. For most workers, a one-time check will not cover the cost of a single rent payment. And the reality is, when nonessential businesses are allowed to reopen, many of those former employees will not be immediately invited back to work.

Even when tourists are free to return here, we wonder if they will. Concerns about their physical health and safety could keep them off planes and out of hotel rooms for months. And a $1,200 check wont stretch far enough to cover the cost of a post-pandemic vacation.

Without additional help from the federal government, it will take a stroke of good fortune for the average Nevadan to survive this crisis. I feel this quite acutely, having secured a new job outside the service industry just two months before the casinos closed.

I got lucky. But economic security should not be left up to chance, or to the generosity of casino owners.

Many working-class Nevadans are in a precarious position: Their economic health depends on the reopening of nonessential businesses. But to reopen too soon is to risk their health, as front-line workers of all kinds experience the greatest risks of exposure.

With their typical marketing savvy, casino billboards and marquees are offering messages of optimism: We cant wait to have you back. Stay Vegas Strong. We will get through this. But as is always the case, the house has the advantage. They will survive this. For workers, the odds are not generous.

Brittany Bronson is a Las Vegas-based writer.

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In Las Vegas, the Coronavirus Odds Are Not in Our Favor - The New York Times