Racial wage gap in the United States

In the United States, despite the efforts of equality proponents, income inequality persists among races.Asian Americans have the highest average income, followed by White Americans, Latino Americans, African Americans, and Native Americans. A variety of explanations for these differences have been proposed—such as differing access to education, two parent home family structure (70% of black children are born out of wedlock), high school dropout rates and experience of discrimination—and the topic is highly controversial.

When the Civil Rights Act of 1964 was passed, it became illegal for employers to discriminate based on race; however, income disparities have not flattened out. After the passage of the act, the wage gap for minority groups narrowed, both in absolute difference with white wages and as a percentage of white wages, until the mid-1970s; at this time, progress for many racial minorities slowed, stopped, or reversed. As of 2009, the median weekly wage for African American and Hispanic workers was about 65 percent and 61 percent that of White workers, respectively. Asian workers' median wage was about 101 percent that of white workers. Overall, minority women's wages in comparison to those of white women are better than minority men's wages when compared to those of white men.

Knowing the inequalities in the wages of various races is useful for understanding the overall racial inequality in the United States because of the integral role that wages play. Wages from the labor market are the primary source of income for most families in America, and income is a socio-demographic status indicator that is important in understanding the building of wealth.

Education is one of the most influential determinants of wage, and thus it is a factor that contributes to the racial wage gap. Varying education levels among races lead to different wages for various racial groups. Education affects wages because it allows access to occupations of higher status that offer greater earnings.Mary C. Waters and Karl Eschbach studied the decrease in the black-white wage gap from the 1940s through the 1970s and found the primary reason for the decrease in the wage gap to be the narrowing of the education gap between blacks and whites. When the education of different groups becomes more equal, wage gaps decrease, though they do not disappear.

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