Any headway in decreasing the earnings gap between black and white men has been destroyed and is back to the levels of the 1950s according to a new report!

Patrick Bayer, an economist at Duke University, has stated:

“When it comes to the earnings gap between black and white men, we’ve gone all the way back to 1950.”

This is evidence he has helped gather by co-authoring a research study that examines the wage gap between working-class men over the past 75 years.

The wage gap between black and white men made some progress towards equality during the civil rights movement yet it started widening again since the 1970s.

The study says that along education lines, those well educated and aiming for higher management positions are doing ok but at the lower socio economic scale and education black men are struggling badly. High incarceration rates, low employment opportunities related to a decline in working class jobs is causing huge problems.

Bayer said:

“The broad economic changes we’ve seen since the 1970s have clearly helped people at the top of the ladder,”

“But the labor market for low-skilled workers has basically collapsed.”

“Back in 1940, there were plenty of jobs for men with less than a high school degree,”

“Now, education is more and more a determinant of who’s working and who’s not.”

The paper was co-authored by economist Kerwin Kofi Charles of the University of Chicago.

The study states:

“Strong racial convergence in educational attainment has been counteracted by the rising returns to education in the labor market, which have disproportionately disadvantaged the shrinking but still substantial share of blacks with lower education,”

Basically educated black men are doing ok, and opportunities are there. However the other ended of the spectrum is at a serious low.

Read the report here.