In this episode of 1050 Bascom, we were grateful for the opportunity to talk to , an Associate Professor for the School for Workers at UW-Madison to talk about an important and unique study he co-directed called “Voices of Wisconsin Workers - A Community Engaged Study of Essential Workers During the Pandemic.” We’ve spent some time on the podcast talking in generalities about the impact of COVID-19 on the economy generally, but we haven’t really gotten into crucial questions of how the pandemic has impacted the financial lives of many individual workers, especially those deemed essential (and never stopped going to work in places where the virus was circulating even without vaccines). We are fortunate to be able to address some of these questions in this interview with Prof. Ibarra who has been studying these issues throughout the pandemic. We enjoyed our conversation with Prof. Ibarra and learned so much. We hope you will too.