A Brookings Institute analysis found that in 2016, the typical white family had a net worth nearly 10 times that of a Black family ($171,000 compared to $17,150). In 2019, the average wage gap between a Black and White worker in the U.S. was 26.5%, according to the Economic Policy Institute. Smith also noted that 70% of African American communities do not have a branch bank, meaning it can be much harder to obtain credit.
ABC News
August 14, 2020
Minimum wage was established in 1938 in the throes of economic depression; morale was low and poverty was high. President Franklin D. Roosevelt sought to stimulate the economy by increasing purchasing power. Over time, wages have gradually increased every few years. In 1956, wages reached $1.00 an hour ($9.55 today). By 1968, wages reached $1.60 ($11.65 today). But after 1968, wages dropped away from productivity, while inflation increased. Though wages continued increasing, they did not keep pace with inflation, leaving the government playing catch up on mistakes of the 1970s and 1980s. The Economic Policy Institute estimates that if wages kept pace with productivity, minimum wage could be approaching or above $20 today.
We have seen thousands of front-line workers risk their lives during the global pandemic. Not just health care workers, but grocery store employees, fast food drive-thru operators and Amazon factory workers. These front-line jobs are disproportionately held by minority and female workers. Women and minorities are historically overrepresented in low-wage jobs and less likely to work and live in areas where the minimum wage is above the federal level. The Economic Policy Institute estimates that increasing the minimum wage to $15 would give 38% of Black and 33% of Hispanic workers a raise. Nearly 60% of the typical workers who would benefit are women.
The Philadelphia Tribune
August 14, 2020
Last year in San Mateo, Calif., a history teacher at Hillsdale High School conducted a mock hearing of South Africa’s Truth and Reconciliation Commission. Sophia Heath, then a freshman, played an anti-apartheid lawyer. She recalls that she “was really excited and that was the beginning of where my activism started.” On the web, she found Coalition Z, a youth group that registers voters and presses officials to combat climate change, provide more equitable school funding and enact gun control. Ms. Heath started a local chapter.
The New York Times
August 14, 2020
Black households have less in the bank in the case of, say, an economy-tanking global pandemic. In general, they have about fives times less in liquid assets — checking and savings accounts, cash and directly held stocks, bonds and mutual funds — than White households: About $8,800 compared to $49,500, according to the Economic Policy Institute.
USA Today
August 14, 2020
As the Economic Policy Institute indicated through its own research, not only do Black women experience disparities in all these fields, but they experience them at every socioeconomic level. For instance, Black female doctors are paid 73 percent of the average hourly wage of non-Hispanic white male doctors—a $16.82 hourly shortfall. Meanwhile, Black women who work as waitstaff are paid 89 percent less, comprising a difference of $1.13 per hour. And the inequalities persist, even when Black women comprise the majority of the respective workforce in that field.
The Root
August 14, 2020
Economic Policy Institute Economist Monique Morrissey joins Yahoo Finance’s Kristin Myers to discuss the concerns over cost-cutting at USPS.
Yahoo Finance
August 14, 2020
Nina Banks, an associate professor of economics at Bucknell University, notes the pay gap is “particularly distressing” because, in comparison to women of other races, Black women have always had higher labor force participation rates.
“Black women’s labor market position is the result of employer practices and government policies that disadvantaged Black women relative to white women and men,” she wrote for the Economic Policy Institute in 2019. Rhonda Vonshay Sharpe, founder and president of the Women’s Institute for Science, Equity and Race, agreed. She said it’s important to consider “occupation segregation.” She describes the practice as “the limiting of the occupations that Black women have access to, especially [jobs] that are higher paid and have more autonomy,” when discussing the pay gap Black women face.
NBC News
August 14, 2020
Julia Wolfe, state economic analyst at the Economic Policy Institute, shared similar concerns in a Thursday morning blog post.
“In an unserious move of political theater, the Trump administration has proposed starting up an entirely new system of restoring wages to laid-off workers through executive order,” Wolfe wrote.
Newsweek
August 14, 2020
Nor does it reflect that Black women typically work fewer hours and therefore make less than White men. That’s in part because they’re more likely to be
unemployed or work part-time, said Valerie Wilson, director of the program on race, ethnicity and the economy at the liberal Economic Policy Institute.
EPI did account for those factors and found that, based on average hourly earnings, Black women still earned only 66 cents for every dollar White, non-Hispanic men made.
CNN
August 14, 2020