The Racial Wage Gap And Occupational Crowding

Though social problems affect a wide variety of people from all races, classes, and cultures; minorities, specifically African Americans, encounter social problems on a multi-dimensional basis. Poverty, employment rates, discrimination, and other social problems strike African Americans in such a way that it is nearly impossible to separate them; each individual has different background, socially and physically, that would determine in which order his or her social problems need to be solved. Impoverished blacks in the inner city may have difficulty finding or keeping jobs, while others may have jobs, but face troubles with work discrimination that prevent them from moving upward .Underemployment, workplace inequalities, and unbalanced

The wage gap continues to stretch farther and farther apart. A wage gap is the ratio difference between the top twenty and lower twenty percent of income levels. The United States is a leading example of a differentiating income levels. A recent study by Harvard students, showed the United States pay gap ratio from CEO’s to average workers is around 350:1. This is a ridiculous difference in pay, especially when there are millions of people underneath the poverty level. The differences in wages being described is solely targeting skill level and is not referring to any other factors like gender, race, social class, and etc. Society has been dealing with income inequality for thousands of years. Although, it is unfair for people to be paid unequally, but it is also the only way for the economy to run smoothly. It would be impossible for the United States to pay everyone equally because of time spent, work incentives, and executive positions.

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).

Errin Haines Whack notes in an article published in the Associated Press that there is more than just one wage gap. The racial wage gap is another issue that is arguably larger than the wage gap between men and women. Whack states that this wage gap – between African Americans and White Americans is larger than it was in the 1980’s in America. The main reason for this great divide; economic discrimination. More importantly, black women are seeing the lowest wages compared to white men and women as well as black men. Specifically, Whack mentioned the differences of wages, using the white man as an anchor for the year of 2015. A black man with an identical background to the white man earns 22 cents for every dollar of the anchor. Compared to the black woman who only earns 11 cents less than a white woman, but still makes 34 cents less than a white man’s dollar. Whack further cites that one way to decrease the gap involved attaining higher education.

“Join the union, girls, and together say Equal Pay for Equal Work” -Susan B. Anthony. Countless women, even here in the U.S. have some sort of the wage gap. The wage gap is the difference between the median earnings of women relative to median earnings of men. In this case, women earn a significant amount less than men. Although the wage gap has gotten smaller over the years, the wage gap still has a long way to go. Women deserve better than just minimum earnings. Full time, working women should obtain the best promotions and benefits. Women that work just as tough and have the equivalent qualifications as men do still earn less, and that is just unacceptable. The wage gap should be abolished on behalf of women of color and their struggle, equal pay is a global problem, equal pay benefits employers and workers, and the wage gap accumulates over time.

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

(Newman and Pedulla, 2010). This number is twice as much as whites. Even if they had a job, many African Americans work for the low quality jobs. This means low levels of income relatively whites. And also nearly 50% of the wage differences between blacks and whites result from the racial discrimination. (Greene and Rogers, 1994). So, we can say that discrimination of wages between blacks and whites play a key role to determinate the income status of blacks. Also underemployment is serious as unemployment for many Americans especially for African Americans, because generally they work in that kind of positions. In March, almost 6 percent of workers had worked part time involuntary jobs. (Newman and Pedulla, 2010).

A massive demographic shift of African Americans from the rural South to the urban North, the Great Migration (1950 – 1970) did not affect the wages of Northern whites as much as it did Northern blacks. In fact, Leah Boustan discovers that even within the same skill group, black and white workers were poor substitutes for one another. Employers often relegated black workers, including those with adequate schooling and work experiences, to stereotypical service positions such as “janitor, cook, [and] porter.” Meanwhile, similarly educated whites held supervisory jobs and union

One of the greatest impacts of racism is the employment area around people of color, which is vital for social progress, prestige and a good quality of life (Aspen Roundtable, 2004). Blacks are twice as likely to be unemployed, with wages far below what white employees receive. According to Aspen Roundtable, the payroll percentage is $ 50,001 and $ 75,000 for a white which is two and a half times higher than people of color (2004). Flynn argues the history and policies written in the United States always exclude labor inequality to Through the exploitation of explicitly discriminatory laws "black codes" that persisted in the North, where white workers, still excluding minorities, furthermore, also the exploitation and domestic labor, which

This article talked about how our beliefs about racial progression and economic inequality are rather inconsistent with reality. According to jennifer a Yale Psychology professor, she said that the magnitude of the misperception is shocking, and it's an obstacle to actually achieving the progress that everyone seems to be celebrating. For every $100 of wealth accumulated by a white family, a black family has little more than $5 a gap just as wide as it was 50 years ago, according to federal statistics cited by the Yale researchers.

A sad fact that needs to be considered when looking at this is from an article that Kellogg Insight put out. It states, “black job seekers are offered—and accept—less compensation than white job seekers. In fact, racial discrimination among employers could account for at least a third of the raw wage gap between black and white workers.” This shows how discrimination impacts income inequality.

The Census Bureau released its annual report of income and poverty in September, 2015. In the survey, it points out that among the race groups, non-Hispanic Whites had the lowest poverty rate of 10.1 percent in 2014. And for Asians, the 2014 poverty rate was 12.0 percent. For Hispanics it was 23.6 percent, while for Blacks it was 26.2 percent. The official poverty rate in 2014 was 14.8 percent, which was 0.3 percent higher than that in 2013. Behind the data, there were so many people striving to make it happen. However, the Blacks were still the race with the highest rate of poverty in U.S. After all, in this economic world full of chance, inequality among races

David Bjerk, The Differing Nature of Black-White Wage Inequality across Occupational Sectors The Journal of Human Resources, Vol. 42, No. 2 (Spring, 2007), pp. 398-434 University of Wisconsin Press

Throughout the nine articles I read, I noticed there were some recurring themes that each author was trying to convey. The most common theme that stuck out to me was the gender gap wage amongst men and women in the United States as compared to other countries that we considered developed countries i.e. Canada and Great Britain. It’s important to note that even within the classification of “women” black women especially, single black mothers are far more disproportionately affected by the wage gap. As one author puts it “was the erosion of black women's relative wages primarily due to white women "moving up" to better jobs, or black women taking the "down escalator" to increasingly bad jobs during the postindustrial transition?” I do not believe it was necessary that black women were moving to “bad jobs” I believe it more so the mentality of White America still believing that black women were inferior to whites.

Abraham Lincoln said “... all men are created equal” in the Gettysburg Address and many of us take this to true yet here in the 21 century we still allow this. Ethnicity largely influences the quality of the job you get as well as the income you will receive in the workforce. Currently African American men working full time, year round get paid an average of 75.3 percent comparable to caucasian men, according to the U.S. Current Population Survey and the National Committee on Pay Equity.The unemployment rate for African Americans is typically at about twice that of Caucasians whom also have many substantial advantages at work. They are offered a substantially larger variety of job opportunities and positions that earn more money and have more power. This form of inequality exists in both gender and race. Though the pay gap has been reduced drastically within the last few years, it still remains a very common form of inequality