The wage gap between white and black wage earners in the United States is the widest it has been in almost 40 years, according to a new report from the Economic Policy Institute (EPI). Published Tuesday, the report includes several disturbing statistics about the disparity between what black and white people are paid for comparable work, including that black men earned nearly a quarter less (22 percent) than white men for similar work in 2015.
The report further states that key characteristics being equal (such as education and experience), black women were paid 34.2 percent less than their white male counterparts.
EPI's report noted the overlap of the gender and racial wage gaps that impact black women (the gap between black and white women has widened since 1979, but still remains smaller than the gap between black and white men), also pointing out that age compounds the impact of the racial wage gap for young black people. "In general, college graduates have fared the worst when it comes to the widening of the gap while black men with more work experience have fared worse when it comes to the overall size of the gap today," said the report.
The EPI found that differences in earnings could not be attributed to disparities in education and training in most cases, but rather "discrimination...and growing earnings inequality in general" are driving the wage gap apart.
