What Counts as an “Essential” Business? A Look at 10 U.S. Cities

As the coronavirus pandemic swept through the United States, an unfamiliar term abruptly entered everyday vocabulary: “essential business.” Overnight, city officials had to determine which workplaces could continue operating-from supermarkets and transit systems to gun stores and nail salons-and which would be shuttered to slow viral spread.

Those judgments, made under intense pressure and often with incomplete data, diverged sharply from city to city. Construction was halted in some places yet allowed to surge ahead in others. One mayor insisted liquor stores were vital for public safety and health; another ordered them to close. What emerged was not a unified national standard, but a fragmented map of rules that left employers, workers and customers struggling to understand whose work-and whose risk-mattered most.

This article explores how 10 major U.S. cities have defined essential business, the political and economic forces behind those choices, and how a national emergency has been managed through deeply local notions of necessity.

How essential business rules differ across ten major U.S. cities-and what that means for workers and customers

Across large metropolitan regions from Los Angeles to Boston, “essential” has functioned less as a rigid legal category and more as a negotiated balance between public health goals, economic survival and local politics. Instead of a single template, each city drew its own circle around what must stay open.

Some jurisdictions restricted essential status to a narrow set of activities-such as health care, food supply, utilities and public safety. Others expanded the definition to accommodate influential industries, long-standing local employers, or sectors deemed foundational to regional identity and tax revenue.

In New York, liquor retailers were folded into the broader food-and-beverage supply chain; in Phoenix, building sites fell under the umbrella of “critical infrastructure”; in Houston, the vast petrochemical sector was locked in as indispensable to energy reliability and exports. Two people doing nearly identical jobs could therefore encounter fundamentally different rules, protections and exposure risks purely based on their city of residence.

For workers, where those lines are drawn determines whose paychecks continue-and under what conditions. Employees in sectors classified as essential frequently receive earlier access to protective equipment and, in some cases, hazard pay or bonuses. At the same time, they are expected to appear in person, interact with customers or co-workers, and navigate shared spaces where distancing can be difficult.

Those labeled nonessential may avoid daily exposure but face layoffs, reduced hours or prolonged closures. The unequal treatment of similar activities has sharpened longstanding inequities: as of late 2023, federal data showed that lower-wage and Black and Latino workers remained disproportionately clustered in front-line and service roles where remote work is rarely an option and where “essential” often translates into “high-risk.”

Customers experience the ripple effects as uneven access to services. A household in Dallas might still call an electrician for same-day repairs, while a family in San Francisco waits weeks under stricter limits on in-home work. As cities revise their lists in response to new variants, vaccination levels and economic pressures, certain groups repeatedly surface in contentious debates over who must keep showing up:

• Front-line retail staff juggling high public demand, limited staffing and evolving protection rules.
• Gig workers delivering food, groceries and medications while operating in a gray zone between contractor and employee.
• Service professionals-including barbers, cleaners and auto mechanics-who open and close with each new emergency order.
• Small business owners challenging frameworks that appear to favor large chains and big-box stores under the same “essential” label.

Inside the patchwork of local definitions: from grocery stores to construction sites and cannabis dispensaries

City halls around the country have assembled intricate rulebooks that attempt to distinguish between basic necessity and economic triage. On a single downtown block, a convenience store selling eggs and baby formula may be bustling while an independent clothing boutique next door is dark. A short drive away, work crews might continue on a luxury apartment tower, even as neighborhood repair shops cut their hours or pause operations entirely.

Most jurisdictions place grocery stores, pharmacies and health-care providers at the top of the essential hierarchy. Beneath those widely accepted categories, however, lies a labyrinth of carve-outs and gray areas-from pet services to firearms dealers-that can vary not just between states, but within metro regions and even between adjacent ZIP codes.

In many Western cities, cannabis dispensaries-once treated as marginal or niche businesses-have been reclassified on par with drugstores. They are allowed to serve both medical patients and recreational users, subject to capacity limits and distancing measures. Street-level scenes illustrate the shift: masked customers queue outside dispensaries permitted to operate alongside supermarkets, building-supply outlets and big-box retailers.

In practice, residents in the 10 cities examined are now moving through an urban environment structured by layers of “need” more than a simple open-or-closed binary:

• Grocery aisles remain busy, while nearby bookstores, gift shops or specialty retailers stay dark for weeks or months.
• Large infrastructure job sites continue under “public safety” or “critical infrastructure” exemptions, even when smaller contractors are paused.
• Dispensaries provide curbside pickup and online ordering, while small wellness studios, yoga spaces and massage clinics close under personal-services bans.

This uneven landscape has influenced where people congregate and how they move through their cities, with public health researchers tracking outbreaks not just by neighborhood, but by the types of businesses that remained essential hubs of activity.

How gaps in guidance leave small businesses scrambling for clarity on reopening and compliance

For many small businesses, the biggest challenge has not only been the restrictions themselves, but the murky guidance surrounding them. In city after city, independent owners describe receiving emergency orders that arrive late, conflict with state or federal rules, or rely on broad phrases such as “critical operations” and “minimal staffing” without concrete examples.

A neighborhood bakery that supplies boxed lunches to nearby hospitals may search in vain for any reference to its role in official bulletins. A family-run hardware store trying to meet demand for plexiglass barriers and air filters must infer whether those sales place it in an essential category. In the absence of clear instructions, many owners turn to informal sources-industry newsletters, trade groups, online forums, and even competitors across the street-to interpret ambiguous regulations.

The consequences extend far beyond paperwork. Confusion over essential status shapes hiring decisions, inventory orders, lease negotiations and safety investments in real time. Unclear rules force owners into a fraught calculation: follow the most cautious interpretation and risk permanent financial damage, or push boundaries and risk fines, reputational harm and health consequences for staff.

To cope with the uncertainty, small enterprises have developed their own ad hoc strategies:

• Peer consultations: Calling or messaging nearby businesses to compare how each understands the latest mayoral order or health department directive.
• Patchwork policies: Choosing the strictest rule available from overlapping city, county and state guidance to avoid running afoul of any regulator.
• Rapid retraining: Rewriting employee handbooks, customer-service scripts and cleaning procedures overnight in response to shifting capacity caps and mask requirements.

As of 2024, many cities have tried to improve communication-launching FAQ portals, multilingual hotlines and sector-specific webinars-but owners in smaller and immigrant-run businesses still report barriers in understanding and accessing this support.

What city officials and public health experts recommend for navigating future shutdowns and essential work designations

Public health experts and municipal leaders increasingly agree that any future round of shutdowns must look different from the first. Instead of long, static lists of exemptions, they recommend defining essential operations around core societal functions-such as food distribution, emergency health care, energy, communications and critical infrastructure-and linking those functions to transparent, data-based triggers.

Several major cities are now developing formal playbooks that connect indicators like hospital capacity, wastewater surveillance results and workplace outbreak reports to clearly defined tiers of business restrictions. The goal is to avoid the confusion and perceived arbitrariness that characterized early responses while preserving flexibility if new variants or other public health emergencies emerge.

Common recommendations include:

• Priority on worker protection: Mandating ventilation standards, upgrading masking requirements when risk is high, and guaranteeing paid sick leave so infected employees are not forced to choose between isolation and income.
• Sector-by-sector continuity plans: Encouraging hospitals, transit systems, logistics hubs, grocery chains and other critical sectors to develop staffing backups, cross-training programs and remote-capable roles where possible.
• Data-driven triggers: Publishing specific thresholds-for example, ICU occupancy levels or test positivity rates-that will automatically tighten or relax business limits.
• Equity safeguards: Targeting hazard pay, on-site testing and mobile vaccination or booster clinics toward low-income neighborhoods and communities that supply a disproportionate share of essential workers.

Early evidence suggests that cities with clearer thresholds and more robust worker protections have been able to stabilize essential sectors more quickly during later waves, reducing both disruption and burnout among front-line staff.

Key Takeaways

As the coronavirus pandemic continues to influence daily routines and economic decisions, the debate over what counts as “essential” remains both deeply practical and highly political. The 10 cities highlighted here reveal how differently local governments, businesses and residents draw that line-and how those choices shape who keeps working, who stays home and which slices of urban life are temporarily switched off.

Definitions of essential business are not static. They have shifted repeatedly in response to case surges, new variants, vaccination coverage, inflationary pressures and community pushback. An activity that one jurisdiction treats as indispensable another may view as optional-or even as an avoidable source of transmission risk.

In the months and years ahead, as states and cities refine reopening playbooks or prepare for future public health emergencies, the contours of “essential work” are likely to keep evolving. Those decisions will carry tangible consequences for workers’ health, local tax bases, downtown recovery efforts and the long-term viability of small businesses.

For now, the patchwork endures. Without a comprehensive national standard, the fate of many businesses-and the well-being of the people behind them-still depends largely on geography and on how local leaders answer a deceptively simple question: What, in a crisis, can we truly live without?