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Malacañang Palace, Malacañan Palace, JP, Jose Laurel Street, San Miguel, Manila, Metro Manila, Philippines

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This article shows President Duterte’s sexist remarks and behavior. He has also mentioned how women should not run the country which suggests that he does not think women are capable of presidency (power). In addition, the Malacañang even tried to downplay the President’s words by saying they were attempts at humor.

The word “war” in line 13 of the poem symbolizes different social issues such as gender inequality. Moreover, the word “we” symbolizes the oppressed, which in this case are women. On the other hand, the word “orphans” is not interpreted as a noun but rather a state-of-being in the sense that women did not choose to be part of this “war”, they were only forced into it.

Sadly, the war for gender equality is only one of the many things women are fighting for, especially in the Philippines. In fact, public sexist comments, especially those coming from the President, could set back many of the reforms done for women empowerment. We have achieved much in history on the path to stop gender inequality such as the legalization of women’s suffrage in 1937 and passing of the Magna Carta law in 2009, but despite these meaningful progresses, important gender gaps still remain.

Furthermore, the COVID-19 crisis has put unprecedented pressure on development organizations, communities, and especially on the government. While they strive to urgently respond, they should not lose sight of the goal to achieve gender equality. Instead, they should make it part of their overall effort to tackle these striking challenges to come out stronger afterward.

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Pia Ranada covers the Office of the President and Bangsamoro regional issues for Rappler. While helping out with desk duties, she also watches the environment sector and the local government of Quezon City. For tips or story suggestions, you can reach her at pia.ranada@rappler.com.

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Duterte, fond of sexist jokes, issues Women's Month message

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Pia Ranada covers the Office of the President and Bangsamoro regional issues for Rappler. While helping out with desk duties, she also watches the environment sector and the local government of Quezon City. For tips or story suggestions, you can reach her at pia.ranada@rappler.com.

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Quiapo Church, Quiapo, Manila, Metro Manila, Philippines

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The reinforcement of heterosexual gender norms is one of the social issues of the past and continues to prevail in current times. The Philippines, despite being a liberal country, seems to discriminate homosexuals through religious views--especially Christian views. Homosexuals are often forced to undergo gender conversion therapy through group therapies and Bible study sessions. Some of these views say that "homosexuality is a sin" while others do not. But even though others do not perceive homosexuality as a sin, nonetheless, they still discriminate and force homosexuals to follow heterosexual norms. Even though the World Health Organization no longer classifies transgender people to be mentally ill, there are still cases of homosexuals being discriminated of being sinful and unholy. The phrase "praying the gay away" holds a very strong opposition against them.

Noting that President Duterte self-proclaimed to be previously a homosexual and got cured, it implies that many, not only the President, seem to view homosexuality as some kind of disorder and mental illness which could be cured through various therapies. This view, is what made some to be "orphans of the war" and these wars regarding gender are forced upon them. One of these wars is the war of having the proper identity and behavior. Homosexuals may feel guilt and shame of having homosexual desires which they fight against. The other war is the war to both give a better conception of homosexuals and to transform the heteronormative society into a more open one.

These wars that homosexual people face just continue without significant change. They are orphans of the war regarding gender identity and gender norms; and thus, are forced to fight for their right of identity and to have the same privileges as of heterosexuals.

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Manila (CNN Philippines Life) - It's 2008. Ben*, an 18-year-old college student, stood in front of a building in Makati with his best friend after coming out to her as a gay man. He was there because he did not want to be one.

Growing up in an evangelical household, Ben accepted the phrase "homosexuality is a sin" as truth, and thus he felt the need to "change" his sexual orientation. He had struggled with masturbating with the masculine form in mind. When his friend led him to this hidden office which sold a promise to resolve issues concerning his sexual desires, Ben felt that he would finally be "cured."

"At the time for me, it was a beacon of hope," he said, now that he's in his 30s.

Ben was welcomed by a bald, friendly man named John, the father figure of the male congregation. "He had glasses and he was very trained. Like a counselor, or a psychotherapist," he said. John told him about the Saturday gatherings, where they sang songs of praise and worship. It was here that Ben met other men who had the same dilemma as his - some his age while others much older - and they were raffled into what he called "accountability groups."

These groups ran over their members' daily encounters. And each attendee had to adhere to a specific set of rules: the men cannot share their mobile numbers with one another, they are not allowed to wear shorts, and they are not allowed to be alone together in a confined space.

And then there was a "self-check" session shortly after.

"There is a list of questions that you answer. I don't remember all of them, but some questions that are being asked are: Did you masturbate? Did you have lustful thoughts? Did you have a compromising situation of any member of the same sex? Things like that, as in questions that ask if you had anything to do with acting on homosexuality," Ben explained. "And at the end of all those questions is, 'Did you lie to the group?'"

Ben diligently answered the questions every single time. In the course of that year, he had lost his virginity to a man, as he was trying to figure out what he wanted for himself. And when Ben admitted his slip-up to fellow attendees of the program, he claimed it broke everyone's heart.

He started an intensive group therapy after that, which went on for another year.

***

President Rodrigo Duterte has thrown around the word "gay" a lot - usually as a weapon against his scorned enemies such as Antonio Trillanes, and sometimes referring to himself. But on May 30, the Philippine president said he had "cured" himself of homosexuality after he met his common-law wife, Honeylet Avanceña.

Duterte is no stranger to colorful language, but more importantly, the belief of being "cleansed" of homosexuality is not specific to the President. Heterosexual culture entertains a lot of tropes on an individual's sexual orientation and gender identity shifting gears. Some straight, cisgender women ask out gay men to date them and ask if they could "change his mind." There's also the assumption that if a lesbian decides to sleep with men, it would automatically press the right buttons to bring them back to the heterosexual life.

There are a handful though, who offer more life-changing services. Through "sexual orientation change efforts" or more popularly known as "conversion therapy" practices, LGBTQ+ can supposedly curb actions and thoughts hinged on their sexual orientation or gender identity.

"When the pastor finds out that you're doing something, you get paddled. It's not like they're gonna hit you ng sobrang lakas, it's the embarrassment. Because then he would gather all of the youth and all of the teenagers that are present."

That was the case for Stuart Baretto, a trans man activist, whose religious mother hired the services of an espiritista or spiritualist when he was 14. Stuart had been diagnosed with depression, but his parents, who were also devout Catholics, did not believe in mental illnesses. His mother had trouble identifying her child as a boy, and his family had already tried various ways to interfere in his sexual identity.

"Tinatapon nila 'yung toys ko na panlalaki. Tapos, pinipilit nila na bilhin 'yung mga clothes ko na pambabae," he said.

And the ispiritista's diagnosis: there was a spirit of a boy inside Stuart's body which caused him to act like a tomboy.

Stuart was then smoked with incense to ward off the invading entity. "Ang weird ng experience na 'to kasi... hihilot ka niya, and then 'yung spirit na sumapi sa akin, sasapi din sa kanya, sasalita 'yung spirit through the manghihilot," he said. "Ang sabi noong spirit, he doesn't mean harm."

The World Health Organization (WHO) declassified homosexuality as a mental health illness in 1990, and in 2019 it also no longer classifies transgender people as mentally ill. The American Psychiatric Association has also opposed any form of treatment against a person's sexuality and gender identity, since there has been no "scientifically validated" methods for converting sexuality, and there is no need to do so.

But in the case of the Philippines, a country with a significant amount of Catholics, it is religion and faith that drives "praying the gay away."

Members of the LGBTQ+ sector are all too familiar with the anti-gay Bible verses most of the devouts read aloud during mass, fellowships, and even the supposed safe space of Pride Marches. Some of these Christians say their actions are done out of love - as they brandish their pickets and scream at queer people - to lead a person back to Jesus Christ.

***

For Ice*, a 31-year-old nurse, that love came in the form of pray-overs. Her mother, a Christian who often attends Bible study sessions, had pulled her out from her high school in Caloocan in 2002 and flung her off to a friend in Cabanatuan. This was after she found out that Ice was dating a butch lesbian.

But the friend of Ice's mom did not take too well to her either, and she was kicked out. Her mother did not want her to come back home to Manila until she changed. Ice then found shelter in a town church, where she stayed until she went off to college. During her stay, she confessed to the pastor's sister that she was gay, and she was met with disgust. It was at that moment she knew she had to force herself to like men.

"When the pastor finds out that you're doing something, you get paddled," Ice said. She remembered having seen two boys paddled. "It's not like they're gonna hit you ng sobrang lakas, it's the embarrassment. Because then he would gather all of the youth and all of the teenagers that are present."

Out of fear of getting kicked out again, Ice subjected herself to regular prayer meetings between her and the pastor's sister for two years. The anxiety surrounding rejection lingered until she entered college in a university in Manila, because despite the pray-over, she was still a lesbian. So she tried to do SEB, or "sex on eyeball."

"Maybe if I had sex with a guy it would turn me straight. So I tried, and I tried, and my studies suffered," Ice said.

After years of trying, Ice gave up on changing her sexual orientation and fled to the United States, shortly after she broke up with a woman she was in a relationship with. Ever since, she has only gone to churches with the rainbow flag - the symbol of the LGBTQ+ community - out.

***

The WHO has already ruled that "reparative" therapies and procedures are rarely medically necessary, and may even cause injury, loss of sexual sensation, and lifelong depression. The global health agency also said these methods are largely unscientific and that these contribute to stigma. Other studies have also linked conversion therapy methods to an increased risk of alcohol and substance abuse, with some extreme cases prompting people to kill themselves.

Several church ministries have branded their ex-gays as success stories. But the Human Rights Campaign reaffirmed research that has trumped on the efficacy of such methods.

In Ben's case, he realized that despite submitting himself to the process for two years, he still can't renounce his sexual urges towards men.

"From that first meeting, tinanong ka na mismo, what is the end goal of people who go here? They eventually became straight? I think that's the whole purpose. That was what my idea of the group was about," said Ben. "And in the end, 'yung nakuha ko talaga na sinabi nila was it's rare. It happens na some get married to the opposite sex, but most cases hindi talaga nawawala ang attraction to the same sex. Ang pinaka-focus lang talaga ng group na 'yun was to change the behavior of some who were active in the lifestyle," he added.

During his group therapy session, group leader John had attempted to psychoanalyze and trace back the roots of Ben's sexuality. In the process, Ben had surmised that his parents' issues were to be blamed for his sexual attraction to boys, which had put him off.

He added that while some of the secret group's members have gotten married to women, Ben's group mates were also having illicit affairs with other men.

The WHO has already ruled that "reparative" therapies and procedures are rarely medically necessary, and may even cause injury, loss of sexual sensation, and lifelong depression. The global health agency also said resorting to these methods are largely unscientific and contributing to stigma.

Asked if these groups had a negative effect on the people it invited, Ben said, "It's hard to say kasi the people who are attending really believe in it. For them, I guess it's still a family for these people. Personally, I just came to a realization that it's not for me and that I'm not going to change."

For Stuart, his mom eventually turned around, especially after he joined an organization advocating the rights of the LGBTQ+ community in college. But he did understand why his parents subjected him to seek help, even though there was nothing about him to change.

"They think they are doing this for what's good for the children. Pero they see it in a religious way," he said.

Ice will soon be married to another woman from the Philippines. Her mom, although still worried that her daughter will go to hell for choosing her sexuality, has begun referring to Ice's fiancee by name - something which she refused to do since Ice started dating women.

She does not blame her mother for how she left her to the devices of a church, which promised to put her back "on track."

"It's more important to educate the parents," she said. "Because they don't understand it. Just the fact that they actually thought of sending their kids to these camps, I think that means that they love them. It's just that they don't understand or they don't know how to love them."
*Names have been changed to protect their identities.

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Manila (CNN Philippines Life) - It's 2008. Ben*, an 18-year-old college student, stood in front of a building in Makati with his best friend after coming out to her as a gay man. He was there because he did not want to be one.

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More prevalent last year, hate crimes towards Asian Americans continue to persist even in the midst of legislative actions of the government in addressing these hate crimes. Various incidents and worst of all, deaths, were cited in the article above. This meant a gravity in the uprising of the anti-Asian racism in the US. This is a "war" that many anti-Asian racism advocacy groups are fighting against. It may not seem significant previously in the past but now that it has been recently alarming, it only confirms that this war against racism is still ongoing and there is no significant improvement yet to be seen.

The "orphans of this war" are our Asian brothers overseas, and they suffer all kinds of discrimination from their own countrymen. This is a war where they are indeed helpless and abandoned. Many of them feel unsafe and now live in fear of violence outside their homes. They are at war, fighting for their lives, their shelter seems to be weak at the moment, and this was forced upon them.

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US President Joe Biden has signed a law that aims to address a rising number of anti-Asian attacks. What's behind the hatred?

An elderly Thai immigrant dies after being shoved to the ground. A Filipino-American is slashed in the face with a box cutter. A Chinese woman is slapped and then set on fire. Eight people are killed in a shooting rampage across three Asian spas in one night.

These are just examples of recent violent attacks on Asian Americans, part of a surge in abuse since the start of the pandemic a year ago.

From being spat on and verbally harassed to incidents of physical assault, there have been thousands of reported cases in recent months.

Advocates and activists say these are hate crimes, and often linked to rhetoric that blames Asian people for the spread of Covid-19.

What's happening in the US?

The FBI warned at the start of the Covid outbreak in the US that it expected a surge in hate crimes against those of Asian descent.

Federal hate crime data for 2020 has not yet been released, though hate crimes in 2019 were at their highest level in over a decade.

Late last year, the United Nations issued a report that detailed "an alarming level" of racially motivated violence and other hate incidents against Asian Americans.

It is difficult to determine exact numbers for such crimes and instances of discrimination, as no organisations or governmental agencies have been tracking the issue long-term, and reporting standards can vary region to region.

The advocacy group Stop AAPI Hate said it received more than 2,800 reports of hate incidents directed at Asian Americans and Pacific Islanders nationwide last year. The group set up its online self-reporting tool at the start of the pandemic.

Local law enforcement is taking notice too: the New York City hate crimes task force investigated 27 incidents in 2020, a nine fold increase from the previous year. In Oakland, California, police have added patrols and set up a command post in Chinatown.

Celebrities and influencers have spoken out after several disturbing incidents went viral on social media.

Here are some of the recently reported attacks:

An 84-year-old Thai immigrant in San Francisco, California, died in February after being violently shoved to the ground during his morning walk

In Oakland, California, a 91-year-old senior was shoved to the pavement from behind

An 89-year-old Chinese woman was slapped and set on fire by two people in Brooklyn, New York

Two Asian American women were stabbed at a San Francisco bus stop; eyewitness reports say the assailant "casually walked away in broad daylight"

An Asian man walking with his 1-year-old child in a stroller in San Francisco was punched in the head and back multiple times

A stranger on the New York subway slashed a 61-year-old Filipino American passenger's face with a box cutter

An Asian American woman in New York City was struck in the head with a hammer by an unidentified assailant who demanded that she remove her mask

Asian American restaurant employees in New York City told the New York Times they now always go home early for fear of violence and harassment

An Asian American butcher shop owner in Sacramento, California found a dead cat - likely intended for her - left in the store's parking lot; police are investigating it as a hate crime

An Asian American family celebrating a birthday at a restaurant in Carmel, California, was berated with racist slurs by a Trump-supporting tech executive

Several Asian Americans home owners say they've been abused with racial slurs and had rocks thrown at their houses

The only Asian American lawmaker in the Kansas legislature says he was physically threatened in a bar by a patron who accused him of carrying the coronavirus

New York police arrested a man who assaulted a woman during a protest against anti-Asian racism

A grieving family received a hateful letter on the day of their father's funeral, telling them to "pack your bags and go back to your country where you belong"

A school board candidate of Vietnamese descent in Portland, Oregon, found a note with the words "Kung Flu" on her doorstep

A medical worker of Filipino descent in Los Gatos, California was shoved to the ground from behind by an assailant who told her to "go back to [expletive] China"

A Thai woman was brutally beaten and robbed of her phone while commuting on a train in San Francisco

What's the situation in California?

Over six million Asian Americans live in California, according to the latest population estimates, by far the most in any US state.

They make up more than 15% of residents in the state.

The coronavirus hit the state hard and early, grinding its bustling cities and businesses to a halt. The virus has already claimed over 50,000 Californian lives.

From March to May 2020 alone, over 800 Covid-related hate incidents were reported from 34 counties in the state, according to a report released by the Asian Pacific Policy Planning Council.

Those numbers have since intensified in Orange County, where anti-Asian hate incidents are up by an estimated 1200%, according to the Center for the Study of Hate and Extremism.

In neighbouring Los Angeles County, hate crimes against Asian Americans are up 115%, CBS News reported.

What's the reaction?

Advocates for Asian Americans say the violence can be linked to rising anti-Asian sentiment in the US.

Some have directly blamed the anti-China rhetoric of former President Donald Trump, who often made mention of the pandemic as the "China virus" or the "kung flu".

During his first week in office, President Biden signed an executive action essentially banning the use of such language within the federal government.

And with Democrats now in control of both chambers of Congress, lawmakers and activists are calling for more attention and resources devoted to the issue.

On 20 May, Mr Biden signed into law the Covid-19 Hate Crimes Act, to address the rising rate of anti-Asian attacks.

The bill designates an official at the US Justice Department to expedite reviews of violence and hate crimes related to Covid-19. It also provides grants for state and local governments to improve their own reporting systems.

The bipartisan measure passed through Congress earlier in May with overwhelming approval from both Republicans and Democrats.

"We need to unite as one people, as one nation," Mr Biden said in a bill signing ceremony at the White House. He condemned hate as "an ugly poison which has long plagued and long haunted our nation".

At the state level, California lawmakers allocated $1.4m (£1m) in state funds to expand data collection, advocacy initiatives and resources for victims.

On the ground, there are more local efforts to combat the hate too.

In Orange County, neighbours stepped in to help out an Asian-American family after a group of teenagers repeatedly targeted them for months with little police intervention. Neighbours now stand guard outside the family's home each night, the Washington Post reported.

Why is this happening?

These incidents are best explained by the "widespread omission" of Asian Americans within cultural conversations, according to Amanda Nguyen, an activist and the founder of the Rise civil rights not-for-profit organisation.

Although the Asian population grew faster than other major groups in the last US census, the community's stories are not widely covered in the media and its concerns are not polled by political parties, Ms Nguyen told the BBC.

Some federal agencies do not even include the Asian American and Pacific Islander community in their definitions of racial minorities, she notes.

Ms Nguyen says that the people attacking Asian Americans since the pandemic began "can't really differentiate and don't care if we are X, Y or Z".

"They have made us a scapegoat to enact their violence."

For Ms Nguyen, the more visibility anti-Asian crimes receive, the better. She notes that laws can help solve the problem, but the US needs a cultural shift as well.

"We are in a moment of reckoning right now," Ms Nguyen adds. "We have been systematically erased on every single level and people can start to combat that by educating themselves about us."

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Covid 'hate crimes' against Asian Americans on rise

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President Biden signs a bipartisan law to "stop the hatred and the bias" against Asian Americans.

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The deadly pandemic that has affected our society, is in reality just like a war that was forced upon us. It has really brought the world to another form of “law of the jungle”, where the strong survives while the weak can only wait to be preyed upon. In this case, the weak are the poor who can barely make their ends meet,  and at the end of the day can only rely on others for survival, while the strong are those with strong financial capabilities to afford the equipment to keep them safe, and have more than enough money to continue their daily lives. A person’s ability to spend is the greatest insurance one can have during this time which makes this pandemic show us how money is evidently the most essential factor in our society, since everything has a price to pay, and if you want to survive you have to be prepared to spend. Not just that, it has also shown us the reality of “ the rich get richer and the poor get poorer”,  millions of people are currently unemployed and more are losing their job yet at the same time those who gain from this are the rich who build up their wealth through this pandemic.

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Alex Cruff's life turned around in March. She had just wrapped up about three months of training to become a manager at a travel agency in Carlsbad, California, when the company laid off 90 percent of its staff as the coronavirus spread, shutting down nearly all travel.

Her unemployment benefit amounts to about $1,200 a month - but her expenses add up to $1,700. With little savings, Cruff has been living off of ramen and peanut butter-and-jelly sandwiches so she can cover her bills and feed her 2-year-old daughter.

"Luckily I have enough money to pay rent and my car - then after that it's like I have to pick and choose between food for me and my daughter and my phone bill," said Cruff, who is 26 and has worked full time since she was 18. "I'm holding back tears talking about it."

Kiel Winters, of Austin, Texas, also lost his job this year as a recruiter for GoDaddy.com, along with about 800 other employees. The news was devastating, but his wife's work as a supply chain manager at a small natural cleaning supply company has been booming under the pandemic, affording the couple additional income through her performance bonuses. They are now planning to build a house in Austin.

"GoDaddy gave us a pretty decent severance package, but really what I've been using is my stock that I was given when I first signed on," he said. "I've been watching the stock market and cashing that out little by little and doing that to keep us afloat."

Six months in, the coronavirus outbreak has left more than 13 million people unemployed. Data released Thursday from the Department of Labor show that almost 26 million people are still filing for some form of unemployment aid. Many are scrambling to salvage their economic lives. Some have exhausted their savings, moved in with family, and, in the case of Cruff and others, narrowed down their spending to essentials like food.

But not all unemployed are equal. The sudden mass joblessness and economic devastation from the pandemic has exposed the country's deep-rooted class divide, and threatens to leave a whole class of lower-wage earners in longer-term financial distress than wealthier white-collar workers, according to several economists.

"The amount of wealth you hold serves as an insurance," said Greg Leiserson, director of tax policy and chief economist at the Washington Center for Equitable Growth, a nonprofit research and grant-making group. "The consequences of this will be long lasting. The deeper the hole you dig now, the harder it is to dig out."

A recent study by the International Monetary Fund of previous pandemics - including the Spanish flu of 1918 but also more recent outbreaks such as SARS, MERS and Ebola - found that after five years, the share of wealth going to the bottom tiers of society had decreased. Additionally, unemployment for workers with basic education had increased - which was not the case for people with advanced degrees.

Without protections for the most vulnerable workers, the pandemic's impact on wealth inequality may be larger than previous outbreaks because of the number of workers without college degrees who have been laid off, according to Prakash Loungani, assistant director in the IMF's Independent Evaluation Office and co-author of the study.

"People with advanced degrees see little effect on job prospects and find a way to keep jobs or are able to find a new one fairly quickly," he said. "People with only a high school diploma go through long periods of joblessness, which has a scarring effect on their incomes and health and family situation, and even prospect for their kids."

Cruff said she has applied to more than 400 jobs in the last few months at restaurants, call centers and customer service companies, but she's always told they found a better candidate for the position, she said. She rents a room in Oceanside from her mother, who is terminally ill with cancer and also a renter living on disability. Her brother lives in the third bedroom and is healing from a car accident that left him with one lung.

"My unemployment runs out at the end of September," Cruff said. "I'm sitting here wondering, 'Am I going to get a job? What if I don't get a job and my unemployment and extension runs out? What am I going to do?'"

The pandemic has pummeled the country at a time when it had already been suffering growing inequality. Over the last 50 years, socioeconomic mobility has been on the decline, according to Harvard University's Opportunity Insights, a nonpartisan research and policy group.

More than 90 percent of people born in the 1940s grew up to earn more than their parents. But today only half of children grow up to earn more, which Opportunity Insights attributes to an increase in the unequal distribution of economic growth rather than a broad slowdown.

"People have been concerned about inequality for some time and we're going in reverse at the moment," said John Friedman, an economics professor at Brown University and a founding co-director of Opportunity Insights.

Early data already shows how the country has split in two. The employment rate for high-wage workers has almost entirely recovered to its pre-pandemic levels, while it is just 16 percent for low-wage workers, according to Opportunity Insights' economic tracker. About 26 percent of people said in August that they had paid down debt faster than usual while the same proportion said they were unable to make a rent or mortgage payment or pay a bill, according to the Associated Press-NORC Center for Public Affairs Research.

The personal savings rate hit a record of 33 percent in March, according to the Bureau of Economic Analysis. Around the same time, people were lining up in cars for miles at food banks because they couldn't afford food.

In Austin, Winters has become frustrated with the job market. He's done dozens of interviews with companies who said they are looking to hire, only to be told that they are pausing on hiring. Ultimately, a friend in the real estate industry offered him an opportunity to do recruiting. Between his job searches, Winters is working toward getting his real estate license.

"I try to keep a positive mindset," he said. "But I'm frustrated right now with how things are playing out."

The couple had planned to buy a home before the pandemic, but they have since decided to build one on their own. They've dipped into his stock options with GoDaddy, which they had originally planned to use for their retirement or a future child's college fund.

"Instead of having that safety net in the future, it's our safety net now," he said.

But whereas Winters can lean on the stock market, which has reached record gains over the course of the pandemic, Cruff's only investments are $1,200 in a 401(k) and about $950 in the bank.

Already, the stock market boom has been shown to hasten the economic recovery for the wealthy and middle class, leaving low-income households struggling. The Federal Reserve said Monday that American households' net worth jumped nearly 7 percent over three months ending in June. But it was concentrated mainly in affluent households.

"Wealth stocks were affected but recovered, so on savings and employment we're back where we were," Friedman said. "Whereas low-income households - they didn't have savings to benefit from the stock market increase and they haven't benefited from employment recovery, and there is no sign that things will get better for them any time soon."

For Cruff, she's not concerned with the long term, but more about how she will make it to October.

"If it was just me, it would be a different story. But I have to take care of my mom and kid and brother," she said. "I feel like I'm alone. But I know I'm not alone."

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How the pandemic is driving a wedge between rich and poor

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Alex Cruff's life turned around in March. She had just wrapped up about three months of training to become a manager at a travel agency in Carlsbad, California, when the company laid off 90 percent of its staff as the coronavirus spread, shutting down nearly all travel.