Black-White Wage Gaps Are Wider Than in 1979

The recently released Census Bureau numbers show that finally, after almost a decade of recession and an uneven recovery, America is heading in the right economic direction. Overall, incomes are up, and poverty rates are lower. But not everyone shares those gains equally. Black workers have been left behind. In fact, the difference between their hourly wages compared to white workers is wider than it was back in 1979, a new report by the Economic Policy Institute finds.

Back then, black men made around 22 percent less than the hourly wages of white men—so 88 cents for every dollar earned by the average white worker, per hour. Black women, at the time, earned just 6 percent less in hourly wages compared to white counterparts. In 2015, that wage gap for black men increased to 31 percent (dark blue line in graph below), and for black women, to a striking 19 percent (dark red line). These disparities existed even after controlling for factors like education, experience, and geography (light blue and light red lines below):