The US labor market exhibits great disparity in both people’s earnings as well as possession of wealth. The earnings of the people from different races and ethnic groups have great disparities. The Hispanics and the Black Americans are the lowest paid workers with a weekly median earning of $624 and $678 respectively (BLS Reports, 2017). The white Americans and the Asians are the highly paid races and ethnic groups in the United States with a weekly median earning of $862 and $1020 respectively (BLS Reports, 2017). The disparity in wealth and earnings can be attributed to several other factors. First, racial discrimination that leads to racial and ethnic disparities in enrolment in schools and colleges is a fundamental factor that contributes to the disparities in earnings. 61% of Hispanics and 39% of the whites in the workforce have a bachelor’s degree while only 20% of the Hispanics and 29% of the blacks in the workforce have bachelor’s degree (BLS Reports, 2017). Racial and ethnic prejudice and discrimination in the Education system lead to low education attainment among the blacks and the Hispanics. Consequently, the blacks and the Hispanics are left to take up manual and low paying jobs compared to their white and Asian counterparts who take managerial and supervisory roles. Secondly, racial and ethnic discrimination in hiring and promotions are equally instrumental factors in the creation of the wealth and earning disparities among the racial and ethnic groups discussed above.
The federal government introduced redlining in the 1930s when they started providing home ownership loans first. In a bid to define the potential borrowers and people who had capacity to repay their loans, the government zoned different neighborhoods (Badger, 2015). The neighborhoods dominated by the blacks and Hispanics were rezoned as a way of denying them home ownership loans. While this institutionalized discriminatory practice has been outlawed, it continues to thrive in many financial institutions unabated. The illegal practice of redlining produces and reproduced disadvantage for the minority groups. For instance, it denies them the opportunity to access capital that would help them in business and wealth creation through loans (Domonoske, 2016). This has contributed to the disparities in the wealth creation among the majority and minority groups who are mainly Hispanics and blacks. Moreover, redlining has reduced the possibility of the minority groups to own homes because they are denied the home-ownership loans. Therefore, the contemporary form of racial and ethnic discrimination has contributed to economic disparities among the whites and the blacks.
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The construction of race and ethnicity has had a consistently negative impact in work and employment particularly for black Americans. Numerous research studies have indicated that black Americans are highly disadvantaged in job recruitment compared to their white counterparts mainly because of their racial and ethnic orientation. Arends (2014) presents a study that sought to find out the rate of racial discrimination among new college graduates. The findings of this study indicated that the black applicants without any criminal records got few interview calls just as the white applicants with criminal records. The research further found out that black young graduates are less likely to go for interviews particularly in jobs that require interaction with the customers (Arends, 2014). The findings point to a deep-rooted racial prejudice in the American society that influences racial discrimination in the job market. Employers are not willing to higher black people despite of their qualifications mainly because they are afraid of their customer reactions. Therefore, the racial prejudice among customers has equally contributed to racial discrimination in employment and workplace.
References
Arends, B. (2014). In hiring, racial bias is still a problem. But not always for reasons you think. Retrieved June 13, 2018, from http://fortune.com/2014/11/04/hiring-racial-bias/
Badger E. (2015). Redlining: Still a Thing . The Washington Post.
BLS Reports. (2017). Labor force characteristics by race and ethnicity, 2016. Retrieved from https://www.bls.gov/opub/reports/race-and-ethnicity/2016/home.htm
Domonoske, C. (2016). Interactive Redlining Map Zooms In On America's History Of Discrimination. Retrieved June 13, 2018, from https://www.npr.org/sections/thetwo-way/2016/10/19/498536077/interactive-redlining-map-zooms-in-on-americas-history-of-discrimination
