China News Service, May 22, according to the US Sing Tao Daily, Asians living in the United States are facing a double blow to the new coronary pneumonia epidemic: the sharply increased unemployment rate and discrimination caused by ethnic identity Business proprietors worry about whether they can survive the crisis.

　　According to foreign media reports, Gary Lin, a Chinese proprietor of a ramen shop, insisted on part of the restaurant's business during the epidemic and did take-out business to pay rent and bills. Lingali said that in addition to struggling financially, he and his employees faced harassment because of their Asian background, and the restaurant's business volume has decreased significantly since early February. One of his employees was attacked while washing clothes in the laundry because he was Chinese.

　　Hai Shian Peng, a Chinese who runs two hot pot restaurants in New York City, has a similar experience. Some employees in his shop shouted at them because they were attacked by their Asian background when they took the subway home from work. When his son was walking in Chinatown one night in early March, someone shouted at him. Since then they will never go out at night. Peng Haishan's hot pot restaurant is now closed.

　　The FBI issued a warning in a March report, pointing to a sharp increase in hate crimes against Asians. According to reports, the experiences of Lingari and Peng Haishan are not individual examples. Asians faced a series of threats and challenges during the new crown epidemic: while facing the risk of virus infection and a sharply rising unemployment rate and struggling economically, they also faced the danger of hate crimes.

　　New York State unemployment data shows that the unemployment rate of Asian employees in this epidemic is disproportionately high. Statistics show that in the week ending April 11, the number of Asians applying for unemployment benefits was the largest among all ethnic groups, reaching 51,653. As the epidemic spread, the number of Asian Americans applying for unemployment benefits continued to climb. By the end of May 9, the number of Asians applying for unemployment benefits increased by 4150% from the same period in 2019, from 530 to 22526. Compared with Latino, African and white, the increase was 1862%, 1151% and 1329% respectively.

　　Overall, since April in New York State, a total of 195,153 Asians have claimed unemployment benefits, compared with 3,489 in the same period in 2019, an increase of nearly 5,500%. The data shows that the unemployment rate of the total population of New York State increased by 1500% over the same period.

　　These unemployment figures in New York State are astonishing because, as far as the United States is concerned, Asians have always been the ethnic group with the lowest unemployment rate. The unemployment rate in April 2019 was only 2.1%, which was lower than the unemployment rate of 2.9% for white people at that time. . However, the labor statistics of the Census Bureau show that by April 2020, the unemployment rate of Asians has soared to 14.3%. Although the unemployment rate of whites has risen to 13.8%, it is still lower than that of Asians.

　　While suffering from a heavy economic blow, Asian Asians also faced hate attacks and harassment. The anti-Asian discrimination complaints received by the New York City Human Rights Commission from February to April increased by 92% compared with the same period in 2019.

　　Faced with increasing unemployment and discrimination, many small Asian business owners worry that they will survive the crisis.