Boston City Government Has A Racial Pay Disparity Problem

When it comes to working in the city, the most reliable employment prospects for African Americans have been to work for the city. As the Economic Policy Institute pointed out in a 2012 report: “Historically, the state and local public sectors have provided more equitable opportunities for women and people of color. As a result, women and African Americans constitute a disproportionately large share of the state and local public-sector workforce.”

But Boston must have missed this memo. There, African Americans hold more of the city government jobs that pay less than $40,000 a year than any other race. But as soon as jobs start bringing in more than $40,000, the racial disparity kicks in with full force, but in the other direction, with most of those jobs going to white workers, and far less of them going to black workers. The racial wage gap only worsens as the salaries increase. Boston’s median household income is $78,800, but only around 20 percent of African American city government workers are earning salaries in that range compared with around two-thirds of white workers.