How Have Racial and Ethnic Earnings Gaps Changed after COVID-19?

Rajashri Chakrabarti, Kasey Chatterji-Len, Daniel Garcia and Maxim Pinkovskiy

No 20221020a, Liberty Street Economics from Federal Reserve Bank of New York

Abstract: Racial and ethnic earnings disparities have been salient features of the U.S. economy for decades. Between the pandemic-driven recession in 2020 and the rising inflation since 2021, workers’ real and nominal earnings have seen rapid change. To get a sense of how recent economic conditions have affected earnings disparities, we examine real and nominal weekly earnings trends for Asian, Black, Hispanic, and white workers. We find that average real weekly earnings have been declining in the past year, but less so for Black and Hispanic workers than for white and Asian workers. Black and Hispanic workers have also experienced small increases in real earnings since the pre-pandemic period.

Keywords: nominal wage; real wage; racial gap; inequality; wages; labor market (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: D63 J01 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2022-10-20
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