By day, 17-year-old Brooke Solomon helps her mother deliver personal protective equipment to essential workers for Meals on Wheels and other programs serving seniors in their homes. By night, she completes school assignments and studies for the four AP exams that she will take from home next month.

As the world grapples with the coronavirus, millions of students in the United States are feeling the pandemic’s social and economic impact as they pivot to remote learning while also taking on more demanding roles at home. 

The phrase, “We are all in this together," has become a popular sentiment since the coronavirus lockdown began. But as the British writer Damian Barr recently wrote, “We are not all in the same boat. We are in the same storm. Some are on super-yachts. Some have just one oar.”

Nowhere is this more evident than in Sarasota, Florida, where wealthy retirees face the shutdown alongside undocumented immigrants who clean homes, keep yards pristine, wash restaurant dishes, and build houses. For these conscientious workers, the pandemic has turned living on the edge into a fight for survival.