Pandemic’s biggest toll still on jobs for minority groups
The pandemic exacerbated weaknesses and vulnerabilities in the economy, often harming minorities the most, and the recovery is taking on a similar “K shape” — with some groups improving while others stall or decline.
The unemployment rate for white workers in Texas was 4.8 percent last month, continuing a steady improvement since late last year. But the jobless rate was 14 percent for Blacks and 9 percent for Hispanics, according to data cited by researchers at the Federal Reserve Bank of Dallas — and the minorities’ numbers have risen in recent months.
“One year into the pandemic, Texas’ labor market disparities are glaring,” wrote research analyst Carlee Crocker and senior economist Pia Orrenius.
Recessions are hardest on minorities, they said, and that has far-reaching consequences for Texas, where over half the population is Hispanic or Black.
Last spring, when pandemic job cuts were soaring, the unemployment rate for all groups surpassed the peaks from the Great Recession. But most layoffs were temporary, the researchers said, and minority unemployment fell through the summer and fall as workers were called back.
That trend reversed course in the fourth quarter when a second COVID-19 wave took hold, even as white unemployment continued to decline, Crocker and Orrenius wrote.
A separate report, which looked at inequities in the workforce in Dallas and Collin counties, reached a similar conclusion about the pandemic — and warned that the state’s economy might conceal deep disparities.
“People of color have been hit the hardest by the pandemic’s devastation,” the report said.
Minorities were overrepresented in essential frontline jobs, which put them at higher risk of COVID exposure, and in nonessential jobs, which were subject to shutdown orders. They also were less likely to hold positions that can be handled from home.
Minorities also lagged on educational achievement, especially in college degrees, and that’s often cited as the reason for such different outcomes.
But researchers said that doesn’t explain the pay gaps that often exist by race and ethnicity.
Whites with no college degree earned about the same $20 hourly rate as Blacks and Latinx with an associate’s degree, the report found.
“Our labor market is deeply segregated,” said Andrea Glispie, senior director of United Way of Metropolitan Dallas’ Pathways to Work program, which participated in the workforce equity study. “White workers are in higher-paying managerial and administrative positions, and Black and Latinx are crowded in lowerpaying positions.
“Educational attainment is essential, but it’s insufficient to close the racial gaps we see, particularly in income,” Glispie said.
Minorities are more likely to be overly burdened by the costs of housing and childcare, and the time demands of longer commutes, especially for those using public transportation.
“If you’re spending a third of your income on childcare, that doesn’t leave a lot for rent, food, transportation and other basic expenses,” co-author Abbie Langston said Tuesday during a virtual presentation on the report.
High-wage workers have captured most of the earnings growth from 1990 to 2018, according to data cited in the report. Job growth was relatively similar for workers across the pay spectrum, but high-wage workers saw earnings increase 48 percent compared with 16 percent for low-wage workers over the three decades, the report shows.
Drexell Owusu, senior vice president for education and workforce for the Dallas Regional Chamber, said he appreciated the report because it “put an important stake in the ground.” It points to specific ways to build an equitable workforce to lift the community, even if some of the research reveals uncomfortable truths.
“I hope the first thing this stirs in everybody who’s listening is a sense of discomfort,” Owusu said during Tuesday’s virtual presentation. “The status quo has not produced the kinds and types of outcomes that we want for our workforce. And I think this data is just real evidence of that fact.”
It’s a good time for these conversations, he said, because over the past year, many regional employers made public commitments to improve diversity and inclusion. He said that means doing better for Black and Hispanic talent in particular.