A recent analysis examined the wages of workers in New York City, including those in department stores.
Photo: Jeenah Moon/Bloomberg NewsNew York City Mayor Bill de Blasio has said his administration will address historic inequities in rebuilding the city’s economy after the coronavirus pandemic. A new analysis of the wage and employment disparities facing Black New Yorkers shows how hard that will be.
Black New Yorkers are underrepresented in dozens of industries and often paid significantly less than their white counterparts, including in middle-wage jobs such as in warehousing, post offices, and film and television, according to a new report scheduled for release Monday by the nonpartisan think tank Center for an Urban Future. Black department-store workers in New York City earn a median annual salary of about $16,000 compared with $45,000 for white workers.
Employment inequity is partly rooted in the fact that many people of color in New York City don’t have the educational credentials that companies traditionally look for when hiring, said Jose Ortiz Jr., executive director of the nonprofit New York City Employment and Training Coalition.
“It may result in them being shortchanged or not offered salaries that are up to par with their white or more-educated colleagues,” Mr. Ortiz said.
New York Mayor Bill de Blasio is contemplating the city’s economic future as it recovers from the pandemic.
Photo: John Minchillo/Associated PressSince January 2018, the New York City Commission on Human Rights has settled 16 cases of racial discrimination in employment with complainants who identified as Black, a spokeswoman said. An additional 14 cases initially brought to the commission were withdrawn when the two parties reached a settlement. In total, complainants received $384,500 in damages and companies paid $45,500 in civil penalties to the city, the spokeswoman said.
Center for an Urban Future used the U.S. Census Bureau’s 2018 American Community Survey five-year sample to analyze pretax wage and salary income across 140 New York City industries. In nearly two-thirds, ranging from banking to sporting-goods stores, the gap in median annual salaries between Black and white workers exceeded $10,000.
The think tank’s analysis also found that Black workers are significantly underrepresented in high- and middle-wage industries, such as finance and insurance, and medical and dental offices. Less than 10% of the workforce in creative industries is Black, including advertising, publishing, architecture and film.
Racquel Forrester’s first job after college was as a financial coach helping predominantly Black and Latino workers with budgeting, building credit and paying down debt. She said she was shocked to see how many hours her clients worked but still were in debt and living off credit cards because their wages were so low.
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Ms. Forrester then spent several years working in workforce development. At one job she placed residents of Sunset Park, Brooklyn, in industrial-manufacturing jobs and found that these formerly blue-collar roles now required more skills.
“I remember clearly that I was working with a company and they were looking for a janitor, but they wanted that janitor to have a college degree,” said Ms. Forrester, who now works as assistant director for the Urban Initiative at New York University.
Ms. Forrester has also worked with a training program that offered computer programming and coding classes to young Sunset Park residents. She then tried to match them with tech jobs but said many hiring managers seemed to worry candidates from disadvantaged backgrounds couldn’t handle the job.
“What I was most successful in getting for our youth were part-time, freelance jobs,” she said. “Those were the only jobs where hiring managers were willing to take a chance.”
Stacy Woodruff, of the nonprofit Workforce Professionals Training Institute in New York, said she thinks the city should consider devoting more resources to helping people land quality jobs rather than trying to match as many people as possible with positions regardless of quality.
“Some of the most effective workforce programs really do cost several thousand dollars per person in order to thoroughly prepare them for a job or a career,” she said.
Mr. de Blasio in April formed a task force to advise the city on how to address historic inequities as the economy recovers from the coronavirus pandemic. Last week, Mr. de Blasio’s administration announced more city and private-sector support for Black entrepreneurs, including help finding loans, investors and other resources.
Jonathan Bowles, president of Center for an Urban Future, said, “From job training to apprenticeships, the city’s vision has been good, but not bold enough.”
Write to Kate King at Kate.King@wsj.com
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