LANSING – Wages, measured in real terms, have dropped for all Michigan workers during the last three decades, but for black workers wages have fallen by nearly 25 percent. That is the conclusion of a report issued for the Labor Day weekend by the Michigan League for Human Services.
The report also said that while the state struggles with the highest unemployment rate in the nation, which stood at 15 percent in July, many workers are trying to make ends meet in low-paying jobs.
“It’s a troubling report, given that we know we have a lot of work to do to improve the skills of our workforce at a time we’re facing major cuts to state programs that will provide the needed training and education,” said Sharon Parks, the league’s president.
According to the report, in 1979, black workers actually made fractionally more money per hour than white workers: $6.20 an hour for African Americans compared to $6.16 for whites.
Since then, when adjusted for inflation, the actual hourly wage of all workers has gone down compared to 1979 levels. But the wages for white workers has dropped by about 6 percent, to $5.81 an hour.
For black workers, the average wage has fallen by 23.5 percent to $4.74.
In part, the report suggests the disparity is because African Americans tend to live in more highly concentrated and poor areas where there are fewer jobs and public transportation is lacking.
The report also says that men are unemployed at much higher levels than women, in part because they have been more concentrated in industries hit the hardest by the recession: construction and manufacturing. The report said that during the spring 17.2 percent of men were jobless compared to 10.6 percent of women.
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