Disparities In The Disturbing Labor Market

Economic oppression against blacks occurred out of white’s prejudice for African Americans. Most economic inequality between races advanced from an unequal opportunity in the labor force. This was because African Americans were not given the same chance as whites for similar jobs. In the 1950’s at least 75 percent of African American men “in the labor force were employed in unskilled jobs.” A few of these jobs included janitors, porters, cooks, and machine operators. However, only 25 percent of white males had jobs which did not require many skills. The disparity between women was also significant. 20 percent of black women were paid service workers while only 10 percent of white women maintained the same job. The two most significant l reasons African Americans were economically oppressed was because they were denied access to numerous jobs and the

In the history of the United States, African Americans have always been discriminated against. When Africans first came to America, they were taken against their will and forced to work as laborers. They became slaves to the rich, greedy, lazy Americans. They were given no pay and often badly whipped and beaten. African Americans fought for their freedom, and up until the Civil War it was never given to them. When the Civil War began, they wanted to take part in fighting to free all slaves. Their opportunity to be soldiers and fight along side white men equally did not come easily, but eventually African Americans proved themselves able to withstand the heat of battle and fight as true American heroes.

The gender wage gap in America is a social problem that has existed since women entered the workforce. According to the National Committee on Pay Equity, for every dollar earned by a man, a woman made 78.3 cents in 2013 (Leon-Guerrero, 2016). Data from 1983 to 1998 and concluded that women workers in their prime earning years make 38% of what men make. During the 15-year period, an average prime-age working woman earned only $273,592 compared with $722,693 earned by the average working man in 1999 (Leon-Guerrero, 2016). The wage gap affects women of color in a more profound way that it does non-hispanic white women. Hispanic women are making 53%, African American women are making 64%, and Asian American women are making 87% of white men’s earnings each year (AAUW, 2013).

The racial wage gap involves the unequal distribution of races in certain occupations which results in unequal wages. It must consider more sources and attributes that could affect the gap compared to the wage gap between white men and women. The complex income difference between black men and women and white men and women is problematic in that it does not segregate solely by race – it is segregated mainly by gender. The complexity of the racial wage gap requires further understanding in order to be able to solve this puzzle.

Inequality is present in every corner of the United States of America. It comes in all different shapes and sizes; it may come in the form of race, ethnicity, sex, or even gender. To showcase how big of an issue it really is I will compare and contrast the differences between them. One of the most ongoing and present topics of inequality is race. The inequality often lies in the sense of income made by different races, the most common being white Americans making more than African Americans. In the 2011, the average income of the white American household was $110,000, while the African American household average was just over $6,000(Vega). The difference is jaw dropping, it would take no rocket scientist to realize there is some sort of inequality occurring between African Americans and White Americans. However, this is not the only type of inequality occurring. Inequality between gender is very similar to the inequality between ethnicities. The wage gap between genders seems to be the most prevalent topic among discussion at the present time. We fortunately live in a society and time where the fight for equality is very strong. We have seen so much change just within the past 5 years. “In 2015, women working full time in the United States typically were paid just 80 percent of what men were paid” (Miller). The difference in wage is jarring. From

African Americans lifestyle did not see much change from before the depression and during the depression in the sense of the capital dollar. They assumed the New Deal brought up by president Roosevelt at the time would bring change to their life, but the white public would not stand to be on equal terms with a person of color. “Unemployment was rampant, and many whites felt that any available jobs belonged to the whites first.”i Many white Americans did not want African Americans to be paid minimum wage, but be paid lower than minimum wage. Industry’s also wanted to pay their employers a different wage depending on the color of their skin. “Negro unskilled labor,

Even though africans americans did not have jobs before the war, their economic situation still changed very little. This was because of a system called sharecropping. Sharecropping was where southern plantation owners would hire African Americans (often their former slaves) and give them pay to work the land. The workers would accept the pay and then the plantation owner says well you need this, this, and this to harvest or plant the crop, then the plantation owner says, “Well i have those things but to use them I’ll take a little bit out of our salary”. The owners did this with everything from tools to food to housing so that eventually the worker was actually in debt to the plantation owner. This then made it so that the worker had no way to leave the plantation and were essentially stuck there almost as if they were still slaves. And sadly this was probably the preferable route for African Americans because the other option was to be homeless. All industrial and white collar jobs were given immediately to white people. Even in the north it was extremely difficult for African Americans to find a steady job that could support a family. Due to this embarrassing amount of economic gains African Americans did not make great strides economically for over 50

Factories were able to hire many blacks, because of WWI. Many of the white factory workers were fighting in the war and the United States feared to admit many European immigrants in for work, leaving the workforce open to minorities and women. Blacks that moved upward were even eligible for overtime in the factories. Blacks begin to go from making $2.00 a day to making 75 cents an hour. Many black southerners saw this as a opportunity succeed or change their previous life.

African americans couldn't justify having higher jobs on plantations as their desire to occupy land was no longer surfacing. Their plight for land became only similarly faded as Andrew Jackson in 1865 ordered all land formerly dispensed through the Bureau to be back to its authentic proprietors inflicting many African americans to be evicted and instilling a deep experience of betrayal as it might seem that any efforts to rise within the social ladder might be

Not only would companies hire white workers before they would black workers, but they would oftentimes fire black workers before they would the white workers. This put a strain on the racism of the south, and many white americans would look down upon blacks (The 1930s: Lifestyle and Social Trends: Overview). Not only were the blacks paid poorly during the 1930s, but the whites treat them unfairly; in 1877 the government put up a system known as the Jim Crow Laws, these laws would stay in place for decades until the 1950s. The Jim Crow laws were put in place to segregate the blacks from the whites. Blacks during this time could not walk into the same restaurant as a white man or drink from the same water fountain because the black man did not match the white man’s skin (Racism in the 1920s &

The economic change has changed these two groups of people. Some times for better, sometimes for worse. Generally, African Americans have gained much more freedom equality and opportunities during the period from Civil War to WWII. But the situation for Workers haven’t improved much, unemployment ,low benefit and bad working condition were still not

913). In 1930, only 15 percent of black women were able to work as factory operatives, leaving the other 85 percent having to work for families. No education or a good job meant zero respect, but these women were put in a position where gaining any of that was near impossible. The African American race has always been forced to jump through hoops to be considered equal and unfortunately, they are still jumping

In the 1930’s America suffered a prolonged economic disaster called the Great Depression. Due to the dreadful economy, unemployment was wide spread. To solve this the government spent billions of dollars on the Works Progress Administration(WPA), which gave unemployed men and women jobs and money. In the south, African Americans were discriminated due to the memories of the Civil War. Business owners would hire white men and women any day over African Americans, even if they didn’t fit the job description. Lee Sustar, an author who studied the Great Depression, stated, “Blacks suffered worse, (they were) pushed out of unskilled jobs (and) previously scorned by

In the 1950 's African Americans had to deal with the impact of racism and employment. Many of them moved from the South of the world to the North and West. From the article Great Migration we can conclude that African Americans wanted to escape Jim Crow racism in the Southern states and seek a new beginning with better living opportunities (Scott). The housing industry was the greatest cause of segregated housing in Chicago. The south of this city consisted of overpriced, overcrowded, and poorly maintained apartments and homes. Most Blacks living in the ghetto had hopes of leaving to better suburban neighborhoods, but segregated housing kept them stuck in the ghetto. Andrew declares how white people were not willing to rent or give African Americans a decent land to build homes on because they didn 't want them to become a part of their communities (Wiese). Whites would do inappropriate behaviors to let Blacks know they wanted them to leave and were not welcomed. Meanwhile Whites lived with amenities, most Blacks lived in poor conditions and paycheck to paycheck. Most African Americans had low wage jobs and were limited to employment opportunities. If they were not born with rich parents they had to work and earn half the amount of money white people earned. The majority

Before the 1950s, conditions for African-Americans were not good at all in many areas of life. When the Great