Released this week, the Economic Policy Institute report says that race-neutral policies won’t adequately provide solutions to eliminate economic disparities. Although Black Americans have seen some improvements in income and jobs during the pandemic, the typical Black worker is paid 23% less per hour than a typical white worker.
The report comes just weeks before the 60th anniversary of the March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom on Aug. 28. In 1963, the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. made urgent calls to raise the minimum wage and build affordable housing. Although civil rights legislation designed to reverse the harm that Jim Crow legislation inflicted on Black communities removed some barriers, racial disparities in employment, wages, and homeownership persist today.
“The reality is we haven’t made as much progress as we would have liked,” said Adewale Maye, author of the report and a policy and research analyst with the Race, Ethnicity, and the Economy program at Economic Policy Institute. “When we think of Dr. King and the March on Washington, [one of the] demands was a livable wage, and we’re still fighting for a higher minimum wage. These demands haven’t gone away, but the problem has persisted.”