Gender and the Black Jobs Crisis

Abstract

Black women face a jobs crisis characterized by over-concentration in low-wage occupations, high rates of unemployment, both racial and gender gaps in wages, and lingering impacts of the recession. Lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, and queer (LGBTQ) workers who are Black face particular challenges in the workforce and report income levels much lower and poverty rates much higher than White LGBTQ workers. The gendered dimensions of the Black jobs crisis require advocacy and policy interventions that reward Black women for their contributions to the U.S. economy.

Keywords::

• Black women workers
• LGBTQ workers
• low-wage work
• occupational concentration
• recession
• unemployment

About the Author

Linda Burnham is Research Director at the National Domestic Workers Alliance and the co-author, with Nik Theodore, of Home Economics: The Invisible and Unregulated World of Domestic Work. Burnham has worked for decades as an activist, writer and strategist, focused on women’s rights and racial justice. She has published numerous articles on African American women, African American politics, and feminist theory in a wide range of periodicals and anthologies.

Notes

Over 10 million Black female workers sixteen years and older were in the civilian labor force in 2014. Of that number, 8.6 million were actively employed. U.S. Census Bureau, “2010–2014 American Community Survey 5-Year Estimates,” http://factfinder.census.gov/faces/tableservices/jsf/pages/productview.xhtml?pid=ACS_14_5YR_C23002B&prodType=table (accessed December 7, 2015).

U.S. Department of Labor, Bureau of Labor Statistics, Monthly Labor Review, “Labor Force Projections to 2024: The Labor Force is Growing, but Slowly,” December 2015, Table 3: Civilian Labor Force Participation Rate by Age, Gender, Race, and Ethnicity, 1994, 2004, 2014 and Projected 2024 (in percent), http://www.bls.gov/emp/ep_table_303.htm (accessed May 9, 2016).

Low-wage workers are those workers whose hourly wage rates are so low that even if they worked full time, full year their annual earnings would fall below the poverty threshold for a family of four. The poverty guidelines for a family of four: $24,250 (2015), $23,850 (2014), $23,550 (2013), http://aspe.hhs.gov/poverty/15poverty.cfm#thresholds (accessed March 18, 2015).

U.S. Department of Labor, Bureau of Labor Statistics, Current Population Survey Data 2014, “Employed Persons by Detailed Occupation, Sex, Race, and Hispanic or Latino Ethnicity,” http://www.bls.gov/cps/cpsaat11.htm (accessed March 18, 2015).

Bureau of Labor Statistics, “Usual Weekly Earnings of Wage and Salary Workers, Fourth Quarter 2014,” http://www.bls.gov/news.release/pdf/wkyeng.pdf (accessed March 18, 2015).

Bureau of Labor Statistics, “Occupational Employment and Wages—May 2014,” http://www.bls.gov/news.release/pdf/ocwage.pdf (accessed December 7, 2015).

Bureau of Labor Statistics, Occupational Outlook Handbook, http://www.bls.gov/ooh/fastest-growing.htm (accessed March 18, 2015).

PHI, Paying the Price: How Poverty Wages Undermine Home Care in America, February 2015, http://phinational.org/research-reports/paying-price-how-poverty-wages-undermine-home-care-america (accessed March 18, 2015).

Linda Burnham and Nick Theodore, Home Economics: The Invisible and Unregulated World of Domestic Work (New York: National Domestic Workers Alliance, November 2010).

Bureau of Labor Statistics, “Occupational Employment and Wages—May 2014.”

Stephanie Luce and Naoki Fujita, Discounted Jobs: How Retailers Sell Workers Short (New York: Murphy Institute at City University of New York and Retail Action Project, 2012).

Bureau of Labor Statistics, Characteristics of Minimum Wage Workers, 2013, Table 4. BLS Report 1048, March 2014.

Ibid., Table 1.

Here and throughout I use the U.S. Census Bureau terminology rather than the more familiar term, “Latino.” “Hispanic” refers to a person of Cuban, Mexican, Puerto Rican, South or Central American, or other Spanish culture or origin regardless of race. http://www.census.gov/prod/cen2010/briefs/c2010br-02.pdf (accessed December 7, 2015).

Bureau of Labor Statistics, “Usual Weekly Earnings of Wage and Salary Workers,” Table 2.

Author’s analysis of BLS Data Series, Current Population Survey, Unemployment Rate 20 years and over, 2005–2015.

U.S. Department of Labor, The African American Labor Force in the Recovery, February 29, 2012.

Daphne Lofquist and Terry Lugaila, Martin O’Connell, and Sarah Feliz, Households and Families: 2010, Table 3. Household Types by Race and Hispanic Origin: 2010, U.S. Census Bureau, Census Briefs, Issued April 2012.

Carmen DeNavas-Walt and Bernadette D. Proctor, Income and Poverty in the U.S.: 2013, U.S. Census Bureau, September 2014.

Alain Dang and Somjen Frazer, Black Same-Sex Households in the United States: A Report from the 2000 Census, National Gay and Lesbian Task Force and National Black Justice Coalition, Second Edition: December 2005.

U.S. Census Bureau, Household Income: 1999, Census 2000 Brief, https://www.census.gov/prod/2005pubs/c2kbr-36.pdf?cssp=SERP (accessed December 7, 2015), 6.

National Justice Coalition, National Center for Transgender Equality, National Gay and Lesbian Task Force, Injustice at Every Turn: A Look at Black Responses to the National Transgender Discrimination Survey, http://nbjc.org/sites/default/files/trans-adjustment-web.pdf (accessed April 1, 2015).