#race gap

[squaredawayblog]

Racial Inequities Carry Over from Work to Retirement – Center for Retirement Research

Recent studies show that Black workers are often forced into an early retirement that further compromises their financial security. 

[squaredawayblog]

Black and Latinx Americans are more likely to live in states that have declined the additional federal COVID aid to expand their Medicaid programs.  

[worklabournewsresearch]

5 Ways to Close the Tech Industry’s Race Gap Through Education

“How can technology and innovation become more inclusive? According to data from the U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission, 83% of tech executives are white. Meanwhile, at Apple, 6% of the tech workforce last year was Black. At Google, just under one-quarter of interns were Black and Latinx, and 5.5% of new hires were Black. ...  Here are five of their suggestions for how leaders in both the public and private sectors can cultivate diversity in the tech workforce.”

“Stop the tech stigma early: ... Many students initially presume a career in tech is out of reach. ... Part of the problem is a lack of what the Dawsons call ‘dinner table capital’ among underrepresented youth. Because their parents might not be in tech, they don’t talk about it at home. This is reinforced by the broader notion that math is untouchable.”

“Make role models matter: Early education can only go so far. Disadvantaged students need tech role models who can lay out a path forward and show how interests can actually evolve into a career.”

“Address the cost and realities of higher education: ‘Only 24% of Boston’s Black and Latinx population have a college degree. That’s not for lack of interest. It has everything to do with systemic racism and systemic barriers,’ ... [Aisha] Francis [CEO of the Benjamin Franklin Institute of Technology] has pushed for policies to make it easier for minorities to attend college, such as extending the deadline for Massachusetts’ MASSGrant financial assistance programs into the summer, reflecting realistic timelines for many students.”

“Hire based on skillset: Francis also urged companies to diversify through hiring based on skillset rather than degree or years of identical work experience. She pointed to Opportunity@Work’s STARS (Skilled Through Alternative Routes) concept as a successful model, which tracks skilled workers into jobs they might otherwise never access due to prerequisites like certain degrees.”

“Deliberately broaden your horizons: Francis had a simple solution for breaking down barriers: Get to know your fellow students and colleagues as people. Assess and diversify your networks. Find common ground. ‘You have to be willing to take risks. And, you know, there are going to be awkward moments. But I think you can approach each other on the level of humanity. Sometimes it’s establishing relationships based on hobbies or common interests, not based on gender and ethnicity,’ she said. ‘It’s little moments. It’s, ‘Hey, how’s your family? Who are you as a human being?’ Relationships start there.’”

MIT Sloan Thinking Forward, March 24, 2021: “5 ways to close the tech industry’s race gap through education, “ by Kara Baskin

Apple, 2020: Inclusion & Diversity 

Google, 2020: 2020 Diversity Annual Report (33 pages, PDF)

Opportunity @ Work: STARs Skilled Through Alternative Routes

Photo Source: Leon. (2019). [Photograph]. Unsplash. https://unsplash.com/photos/Oalh2MojUuk

[jewels-verne]

People who genuinely believe that the race gap and gender gap don't exist have obviously never been in the real world.

[thefeministherald]

Dang, Academy. I mean, we know you’re93% white, 76% male, and have an average age of more than five dozen revolutions around the Sun… but it’s like this year you didn’t even try to hide it. Twenty spots for nominating actors, and they’re all occupied by white people. Twenty spots for directing, writing, and cinematography, the most prominent behind-the-camera creator roles, and they’ve all gone to men, despite, for example, industry buzz around director Ava DuVernay, whose Selma is the only Best Picture nominee to have garnered less than five total nominations.

[thepoliticshive]

Includes the following (as well as associated depts):

Atlanta

Boston

Chicago

Cleveland

Dallas

Denver

Houston

Kansas City

Los Angeles 

Miami

New York

Phoenix

San Francisco

Seattle 

St Louis

Washington

[youtoocray]

[jillathrilla]

Up until 1973, the precise year the Rockefeller drug laws were passed, the difference between black and white median income had been closing. But then that year it changed course, and in “an ominous bellwether… the gap between black and white incomes started to grow wider again, in both absolute and relative terms.”  Direct empirical research into incarceration’s economic effects weren’t done until recently, when a Pew Charitable Trusts research paper showed that prior to imprisonment two-thirds of male inmates were employed and half were their family’s primary source of income.  Additionally, upon release an ex-con’s annual earnings were reduced by 40%

In the nearly forty years since America’s modern drug laws were passed, there has been a massive increase in economic inequality by any measure. In the early 1970′s not only did the income gap between black and white begin to widen again, it also becomes much more top-heavily favored to the very rich – who happen to be almost exclusively white as well.

This is an incredible section of an incredible book discussing the racial gap in America today. I learned a lot.