An Economic Policy Institute analysis found that in 2022, the average white employee made $34.49 an hour, while the average Black employee made $25.61 — a difference of $8.88, or nearly 30%. This can mean the difference between having food on the table, emergency savings money, a 401(k), and student loan debt paid, or not.
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Plus, Valerie Wilson, director of the Economic Policy Institute’s program on race, ethnicity, and the economy, points out, it’s a huge burden for an individual to prove discrimination. “The system currently is set up in a way that you have to have the experience of discrimination before anything happens,” she said, “as opposed to us putting more resources and energy into preventing it or limiting opportunities for it to happen in the first place.”